Pirates' Lair

by Jane Corrie

  On the Friday morning before Sapphire was due to sing on the Saturday, she made an impromptu visit to the hotel, and seeing her, Thea steeled her-

  self to meet Marcus again. She had not envisaged Sapphire paying a morning visit, and even Pauline was surprised to see her.

  `Tell Mr Bois that I'd like a look at the stage positioning,' she commanded Thea.

  `I'm afraid my uncle's out at the moment,' Pauline got in quickly. 'The stage is being erected at the end of the dining room. I can show you where, but it won't be put up until tomorrow night.'

  Sapphire stared at Pauline as if she was an interesting specimen she had just chanced upon. 'Dining room?' she echoed haughtily, then gave an elegant shrug of her slim shoulders. 'Oh well, if that's the best you can do.' She then thought for a moment. 'I shall not, I hope, be competing with the soup course, or the main course come to that. I trust arrangements have been made in that direction?' she demanded of Pauline.

  `Of course,' replied an equally annoyed Pauline, who would obviously have loved to verify her fears. `Would you like to see the dining room?' she added, trying not to let her temper get the better of her.

  `There's hardly any point, is there?' Sapphire replied insolently, then turned back to Thea, completely ignoring Pauline. 'Ring for a taxi for me, will you? and then ring Mr Conan and tell him that I got through earlier than expected, and that I'll meet him for lunch at the usual place.'

  Pauline's gasp of indignation was quite audible, but Sapphire ignored it and walked over to the same lounge seat that she had sat in the night Marcus had collected her, leaving Thea the embarrassment of ringing Marcus after she had made the call to the taxi number.

  It was too much to hope for that Mardis would not be in his office; he was, of course, and Thea, pretending that she did not recognise his voice, gave the bare message as it had been given her, and called him Mr Conan.

  His amused, 'Thank you, Thea,' made her slam the receiver down harder than was absolutely necessary, but she did not intend to indulge in a conversation with him, not with the silent but very observant Sapphire listening in.

  When Sapphire had left, Pauline gave vent to her exasperation. 'Of all the objectionable females!' she exclaimed indignantly. 'Imagine having her around for three whole months! I'm not sure I'm going to be able to take it,' she wailed.

  `I feel exactly the same way,' Thea endorsed heartily. 'You wouldn't know of any other hotel that requires a well-trained receptionist, would you? One that definitely does not go in for entertaining the guests?'

  Pauline gave an appreciative grin. 'Two well-trained receptionists,' she commented, but when her smile was not echoed by Thea she gave her a searching look. 'You really meant that, didn't you?' she asked in a surprised way.

  Thea gave her an apologetic smile and nodded. `I've been seriously considering moving on for several days now.'

  `Jobs aren't all that easy to come by,' Pauline replied. 'And I shouldn't worry about her, you won't be seeing all that much of her, you know.' Her glance strayed to the poster depicting Sapphire's photograph. 'Let's hope she's a flop,' she said grimly. 'I think she'd go down very well with the

  gurgling of the soup course,' she added maliciously, then gave Thea another wide grin. 'Come on, don't let the likes of her get you down. Do what I do, grit your teeth and bear it!'

  Thea looked away from Pauline's amused eyes. Where did she go from there? How could she possibly explain the reason why she had to go without telling her the truth? In the end she settled for an airy approach to the matter by saying, 'I guess I've got the wanderlust. I used to be a dental nurse. Oh, I like this work,' she added quickly, seeing Pauline's eyebrows raise, 'but I'm not sure that I'd want to settle for it permanently. I really haven't had a chance to explore the possibilities of going back to my previous work.'

  Pauline was silent for a second or so while she studied Thea with her head on one side and a puzzled look in her eyes. 'Why did you come out here? To stay, I mean?' she asked Thea bluntly. `You don't seem to be the wanderlust type to me.' This time it was Thea who raised her brows. 'We've had them here from time to time, English, American, French—they ask for work, but you know they'll never settle. Give them a month or so, and they're off again. Going to see the world, they say.' Pauline stared down at the desk top. 'Hopeless romantics, that's what they are,' she added. 'Always looking for something. The girls for romance—the men ' she gave a light shrug, 'adventure, I suppose—whatever it is, I don't believe they'd recognise it when they saw it.'

  Her gaze then left the desk top and settled on the windows to the view beyond, and following her gaze Thea saw the white plumes of spray as the waves

  caressed the shore of the bay in the far distance. 'I'm sure all that moving around is bound to have an effect on them,' she went on. 'I remember one girl,' she told Thea thoughtfully, 'she told me she wanted to see as much of the world as she could before she settled down under a line of diapers.' Her expression lightened as she said this and she smiled. 'You should have seen her, she would have looked more at home under the movie lights! She had gorgeous red hair, tinted, I suspect, and painted nails to match. She always looked as if she had just stepped out of a beauty salon. I had a hard time imagining her under a line of diapers, I can tell you!' Her mood changed to a serious one. 'As I said, you're not one of them, so what are you doing so far from home?'

  Thea's grey eyes met Pauline's brown searching eyes. 'I came because of my brother. He got a job out here, and sent for me when he decided to settle here,' she replied quietly.

  Pauline's eyes widened in interest. 'Where's he working?' she asked.

  Thea's eyes clouded over; but she would have to get used to this poignant questioning. 'He died in a car crash the day before I arrived,' she said in a low voice.

  `Gee, honey, I'm sorry,' Pauline said quickly, then gave a small gasp. 'I remember reading about it! Michael someone—' she half muttered to herself. 'He was an architect, wasn't he, and was doing some work for Mr Conan?'

  Thea looked away quickly. It would only be a matter of minutes now before Pauline got the connection between her and Marcus, and she ought to have thought of that.

  As if right on cue, Pauline's eyes went wide. But it was his sister who was engaged to Mr Conan,' she gasped, and stared hard at Thea.

  Thea couldn't meet Pauline's eyes and stared out of the window. She couldn't have hoped to go on deceiving her, not on an island of this size, and particularly with anything that concerned such an august personage as Marcus Conan. 'That's right,' she said quietly.

  Pauline shook her head disbelievingly. 'I don't get this,' she said slowly. 'If you're engaged to Marcus Conan, what are you doing here?'

  Thea studied the gentle surge of the waves in the distance. 'I was engaged to Marcus, I'm not now. I needed a job, so here I am,' she supplied indifferently.

  Pauline drew in a deep breath as she sat down slowly on a chair. 'You mean he asked you to marry him, and then broke it off?' she demanded.

  Thea gave a thin smile. 'I broke it off, to be more precise,' she replied. 'I could see it wasn't going to work out, so I—please, Pauline, it's very personal, and I'd really rather not talk about it,' she added softly.

  `You can't leave me in the air like that!' Pauline squeaked. 'You get engaged to the most eligible bachelor on the island, not only eligible, but disgustingly rich, and handsome to boot, and you just stand there and tell me that you broke it off she shook her head in a dazed way. 'This is screwy,' she muttered.

  Thea eyed the bemused Pauline. 'Can you honestly see a man like that settling for someone like me?' she asked sardonically. 'He only asked me to

  marry him because he felt responsible for me. There was nothing else in it.' Her eyes clouded over as she looked away from Pauline's searching eyes. 'Oh, yes, for a while I lived on cloud seven, thinking how marvellous things would be, but you can't live on dreams, it's much better to face reality,' she added on a bitter note.

  An influx of newcomers cut short whatever
Pauline had wanted to say to this bald comment of Thea's, and the girls were kept busy until their lunch break, which they took in the hotel's dining room in a sectioned-off area near the kitchen entrance.

  Any hope that Pauline might drop the subject was quickly dispelled by her opening words as soon as they had been served with their salad. 'He must have felt something for you, Thea,' she said, as though there had been no break in their conversation. 'I mean—well, marriage isn't a thing you take on lightly. Besides,' she grinned, 'you can have too much of a good thing, you know. Men nearly always settle for the homely types, easier to live with, if you know what I mean.'

  `Thank you,' Thea replied, unable to suppress a smile at Pauline at the way she had labelled her as the homely type.

  `Oh, you know what I mean!' Pauline added with a chuckle. 'And stop selling yourself short. You've a lot more going for you than that Sapphire has. Given a year or so, she'll start to look hag-ridden, she gets her face out of a box. All right, I'm a cat,' she grinned, 'but her sort gets me on the raw. So she has a good figure—well, so have you, a bit on the thin side, maybe, but just right for your height. I'd back

  you against her, any day.'

  There was silence while the girls ate their lunch, but their thoughts were far away from their cheese salad. 'What did he say when you broke it off?' Pauline asked curiously, as she pushed her empty plate away.

  Thea put down her knife and fork. She hadn't finished her salad, but she had had enough. 'Nothing,' she replied quietly, 'just accepted it, and proved that I was right, and that he was only out to protect my future.'

  Pauline gave her a sympathetic smile. 'Well, never mind, pet. There's plenty of fish in the sea. I'd say you did right in breaking it off. He wouldn't have allowed you to back out of the engagement if he'd really cared for you, not if what I've heard about him is right. He's a hard man to cross. He's respected and feared by a great many folk, but he's a just man for all that, it's the shady dealers who have cause to fear him.'

  The girls refused dessert and settled for coffee, and after a few minutes' silence Pauline said rum-natively, 'What rotten luck that she'd come across you. If Uncle hadn't had that good idea she'd never have seen you.'

  Thea's thoughts did not coincide with Pauline's, for unless she was very much mistaken it had not been her uncle's idea at all, but one that had been put to him by one of his bosses—but she could not be absolutely certain of this, she thought absently, as she refused a second cup of coffee. 'Does he often get these sort of ideas, about livening up the guests' stay?'. she asked idly.

  Pauline gave an airy wave of the hand. 'Well, I

  know he's my uncle,' she said, 'but the sad fact is he hasn't an original thought in his head. He's all for a quiet life. I suppose one of the guests must have asked if the hotel ever put on any entertainment. I can't see him bothering otherwise.'

  `Or the idea was put to him by one of the directors,' said Thea, speaking her thoughts out loud without giving herself time to think.

  `Marcus Conan, for instance?' Pauline replied, quickly catching on to Thea's line of reasoning and somewhat shaking Thea with her perspicacity.

  `Oh, I wasn't really thinking of him,' Thea lied, but it was too late now, for Pauline had got the bit between her teeth.

  `It could very well have been him,' Pauline commented thoughtfully. 'Our Sapphire could have got bored with her usual haunts and asked him to come up with something.' She stared at Thea. `If it was him, then it was pretty foul of him to suggest this place, wasn't it? I mean, he knew you were here, didn't he? He must have got you the job, but that's men all over,' she said exasperatedly, It wouldn't occur to him that Sapphire would have it in for you.'

  Thea chose to ignore the last comment; her thoughts were on Pauline's previous statement. 'Are you sure that Marcus got me the job?' she asked in a deceptively mild voice.

  Pauline nodded emphatically. 'I wasn't before, but I am now,' she said. 'I told you my uncle isn't one to stick his neck out. We've had so many of the travelling fraternity and the constant stops and starts that it's now the rule of the house not to employ what we term as "strays". They have to be

  locals now. You were the exception to the rule, and it's pretty obvious now why you were taken on.'

  Thea felt a surge of hopelessness wash over her. `Do all the other hotels have the same rule?' she asked Pauline quietly.

  Pauline blinked at the change of conversation. `Why, I expect so,' she said slowly. 'I don't honestly know, though.'

  Thea's forefinger traced the rim of her coffee cup. `In that case, it looks as if I shall have to stay put. I've no option,' she said dully.

  `Come on, cheer up,' Pauline said heartily, as she poured herself a third cup of coffee. 'Although I don't think I'd care to be in your position,' she admitted honestly, 'not with someone like that on the warpath.' She was silent as she sipped her coffee, then said thoughtfully, 'It's no wonder she's gunning for you.'

  There was no need to ask who Pauline was referring to, and Thea gave a light shrug. 'It doesn't make sense, really,' she said after a moment's thought. 'I'm out of the running, and she's back in favour. You'd think she'd leave it at that, wouldn't you?'

  Pauline gave her a knowing look. 'Not Sapphire Durley,' she said emphatically. 'You're still around, and that's enough for her. I can see your point in wanting to remove yourself from the limelight, though, and under the circumstances I might be able to help you out there.'

  Thea's eyes showed their appreciation of this offer of Pauline's. 'I don't mind what I do,' she said quickly. 'It need only be something to tide me over until I get myself properly settled,' she added.

  Pauline's eyes were narrowed in thought. 'I'm thinking that perhaps an aunt of mine could do with some help. She runs a small guesthouse and beach café, and she's not so young as she was. It's nothing grand, mind you, but she's got room to put you up as well,' she said.

  `Oh, Pauline!' breathed Thea thankfully. 'Do you really think she'd take me on? But what about your uncle? Won't he be furious at my leaving so soon?' she queried anxiously.

  `Don't worry about that,' Pauline said confidently. 'I'd just say that you've been offered a job more in keeping with your past training, he won't argue about it, especially as you-know-who recommended you for the job in the first place. Uncle Joseph is all for a quiet life, as I told you. Leave it to me. I'll see what I can fix up for you.'

  Thea could have hugged Pauline, for she was sure that she would get her the job that she had mentioned, and with any luck she would be well away from Sapphire and Marcus's vicinity before many days had passed.

  It was as well for Thea's peace of mind that she had the promise of Pauline's help in removing her from the hotel, for Sapphire's appearance the following evening brought another round of ammunition directed at her by the barely civil singer, who had swept into the hotel in a towering rage ten minutes before she was due to give a performance.

  `Have there been any messages for me?' she demanded of Thea haughtily.

  Thea had looked at Pauline, who had given a negative shake of the head. `No message,' Thea had replied, her blunt answer echoing Sapphire's bald

  approach. She knew her name, Thea thought, but she had addressed her as if she were a servant.

  Sapphire's lips had thinned at Thea's response. `Well, there will be,' she said softly. 'Just make sure that it's passed on to me.' Her flashing eyes left Thea and rested on the lobby door. 'Something must have held him up,' she said, her tapping foot displaying her displeasure, then she looked directly at Thea. But no doubt he'll make up for it,' she commented meaningly, with a small hard smile at her, then swept towards the dining room and her awaiting audience.

  Pauline's look was eloquent as her eyes followed Sapphire's tall figure as it disappeared through the glass doors leading to the dining room. 'And we love you too,' she said gratingly, and looked at Thea. 'I think he wants his head examined,' she commented acidly, then gave a sigh. 'Still, there's no accounting for tastes, is there?'
<
br />   Thea managed a weak smile and looked hopefully towards the lobby clock. With any luck she would be off duty before Marcus put in an appearance, since it was obvious that Sapphire expected him to attend her first night.

  Thea's luck held and she went off duty with much more studious attention to the 'time up' slogan than she might otherwise have done, and fairly raced for the seclusion of her room.

  The following morning a pleased Pauline told her that Sapphire's anticipation of either hearing from Marcus or having him attend her performance had not been fulfilled. He had neither rung nor put in an appearance. 'She tore into the night clerk,' she commented, 'insisted that there must have been a message left for her, and hinted darkly that the previous receptionist must have taken the call and failed to pass it on to him.' She gave a grimace. 'She was trying to make trouble for you, obviously—she wouldn't bother about me. They had to ring for a taxi for her, and she was spitting mad about it, she'd relied on another form of transport apparently, and you know what it's like getting a taxi at that time of night,' she grinned. 'Serves her right for being so beastly to you, and I hope he was entertaining someone else!'

  Thea looked away quickly so that Pauline would not see the hurt these words had caused her. It was bad enough knowing that Marcus was with Sapphire, but to bring another beauty into his life was too much for her to take.

  `We're going to see my aunt this morning,' Pauline announced, as she helped Thea to make her bed. 'I was going to leave it until next week, I usually visit once a week, but I've a feeling that the sooner that I get you out of here, the better.'

  Her words echoed `Thea's own thoughts on the matter, and she gave her a grateful smile. 'Let's hope she takes to me,' she commented quietly.

  Pauline's aunt, Mrs Welling, was a widow in her early seventies, and Thea took to her on sight and fervently hoped that the feeling was mutual. Her iron-grey hair was plaited and arranged in a bun at the back of her head, and her thin slightly stooped figure gave evidence of a hardworking life, as did her work-roughened hands.