Devil At Archangel

With a brief nod, he turned away and continued on down the street. Christina watched him go, aware that her heart was thumping in an erratic and totally unprecedented manner. She told herself that she was glad to see him go, to be free of that disconcerting silver gaze and bewilderingly barbed tongue. She was thankful that he had not offered to accompany her to the hotel, she told herself defiantly, and if he had done so, she would have refused his offer.

No matter how odd his manner, his directions were reassuringly accurate, she found a few minutes later as she emerged into the square and saw the opulent colonial lines of the Beauharnais confronting her. She quickened her steps, instinct telling her that Mrs Brandon’s rest would have ended long ago and that her absence would have been noticed.

She crossed the trottoir quickly, swerving between the laughing, chattering groups of people making a more leisurely return to the hotel for dinner, followed by an evening’s entertainment. For a brief moment she felt envy stir within her. Her time here was so brief, and tomorrow she would set out for a very different existence on Ste Victoire, with no very clear idea what, if anything, she had to look forward to. She shook her head impatiently, tossing back her hair. She mustn’t think like that, she chided herself. It was the chance of a lifetime, and she was just allowing the afternoon’s experience to upset her unduly. After all, here she was back safe and sound, with only her pride bruised a little—and that was a condition she had learned to live with.

As she approached the hotel’s imposing portico, she noticed that a group of tourists had gathered at one side of it, and were obviously watching something that was taking place in the shade of one of the tall columns which decorated the entrance.

She hesitated for a moment, then deciding she might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb in the matter of lateness, threaded her way through the group to see what was interesting them all so closely. It didn’t at first glance seem to be too impressive. A tall, lanky Negro with grizzled hair was crouching on the ground, tossing what appeared to be chicken bones in front of him. In front of him, a matronly-looking woman with blue-rinsed hair was also crouching, oblivious of the damage the dusty ground was doing to an expensive suit. As Christina paused, she got to her feet, brushing her skirt almost absently, an expression of mingled alarm and delight on her plump good-natured face. She took the arm of a well-dressed man standing behind her and they moved away. As they passed her, Christina heard the woman say, ‘But that was truly amazing, honey. He knew everything …’ Oh, she thought, as comprehension dawned, a fortune-teller.

Momentarily, she lingered, waiting to see who his next client would be from the laughing jostling little throng that surrounded him, but no one seemed very willing to step forward. The man waited, leaning his back against the column, his calm liquid eyes travelling speculatively round the group as if there was all the time in the world. He made no effort to tout for custom, Christina noticed curiously. With a feeling of anti-climax she began to back away and to her alarm felt someone grasp her arm.

‘Now then, little lady.’ A plump, bespectacled man in brightly coloured sports shirt and slacks beamed at her. ‘Why don’t you try your luck?’

The people round him agreed enthusiastically and in spite of her protests, Christina found herself being pushed to the forefront of the crowd. She was blushing with annoyance and embarrassment. She wasn’t altogether averse to having her fortune told and she knew—of course she did—that it was all harmless fun, yet at the same time she was reluctant to take part in what amounted to a public performance. It must be her day for finding herself in situations that were none of her making, she told herself philosophically as she squatted obediently in front of the fortune-teller and added some coins to the battered tin at his side. She didn’t know what to do—whether or not to extend her palm for him to read, but in fact he seemed totally oblivious of her presence. All his attention seemed to be concentrated on the small pile of bones he was tossing in his hands. She waited rather uncomfortably, feeling that she was making a fool of herself for the second time that day, and that she did not want to be told that she would soon make a long journey and meet a dark stranger. That was the usual jargon, wasn’t it?

The bones cascaded to the ground with heart-stopping suddenness and the man bent forward to examine them. There was a long silence, and Christina felt suddenly edgy. Oh, why couldn’t he do his spiel and get it over with? she wondered, visualising Mrs Brandon’s reaction if she were to emerge from the hotel and find her new companion sitting around in the dust, waiting to hear details of an imaginary future.

‘You must take care, m’m’selle.’ The man’s voice, suddenly hoarse and harsh, recaptured her wandering attention. ‘I see evil. You must beware—beware of the devil at Archangel.’

Abruptly he rose to his feet, snatching up the bones and the tin cup, and walked off through the crowd, ignoring the disappointed protests that followed him. Christina got to her feet, smoothing her skirt, aware of the curious glances that were being directed at her. Her face flaming, she almost ran to the hotel entrance, the man’s words sounding like a warning drum beat in her head—‘Beware—beware of the devil at Archangel.’

She still had not fully recovered her composure the next day when she set out on the last lap of her journey to Ste Victoire with Mrs Brandon. But, if she was honest, the fortune-teller was not wholly to blame for this. Mrs Brandon had indeed been angry to find that she had gone out—unaccountably so—and Christina had found herself wilting under the lash of her tongue. Nor had a halting attempt to describe her afternoon’s ordeal and its strange aftermath led to any softening of her employer’s attitude. Mrs Brandon did not hesitate to imply that Christina had asked for everything she had got and more, and when Christina had tried to tell her about the fortune-teller, she had been imperiously waved to silence.

Dinner was an uncomfortable meal, with Mrs Brandon maintaining an icy reserve which boded ill for the future. It was not as if her anger had been roused by concern for Christina and the danger she had been in. It seemed simply to have been caused by the fact that her instructions had not been obeyed to the letter.

Christina was thankful when she could at last withdraw to her own room. She felt unutterably weary, but perhaps predictably, sleep would not come. No amount of logical reasoning could dismiss the chill of the fortune-teller’s warning.

She told herself over and over again that he must have an accomplice in the hotel who made it his business to acquaint him with details about guests which he could use. And Mrs Brandon was obviously well-known at the Beauharnais. The very fact that Christina was travelling with her revealed that her destination was Archangel, and the man had simply been trying to give the crowd their money’s worth by introducing a touch of drama into a very prosaic situation. It was so simple, when she worked it out. Why, then, couldn’t she believe it? She wished that she had been given the trite prediction of wealth and a handsome husband that she had originally envisaged. It would have been something to smile over in the months to come.

Instead, she was facing the journey ahead with a strange reluctance, unable to dismiss the murmurings of inner disquiet. It was not simply her discovery that Mrs Brandon’s temper was all she had suspected, and worse—she could have lived with that—but rather all the unanswered questions she had pushed to the back of her mind in the relief of having a job offered to her and some kind of future to look forward to. Again, she found herself wondering why Mrs Brandon had come personally to England to seek her. Her health, after all, was not good—far from it. As well as her arthritis, she seemed to be taking a variety of tiny capsules for other purposes, and Christina could not help suspecting that she had a bad heart. If that was the case, then why had she not appointed some kind of agent rather than put herself to all the trouble of a journey half way across the world?

She would have liked to tell herself that it was compassion and kindness that had prompted the action, but she knew that such a conclusion would merely be an exercise in self-deception.

She was forced, instead, to conclude that Mrs Brandon had some urgent reason for wanting to look her future protegée over in person, although she could not even hazard a guess as to what that reason could be.

But the feeling of elation that had gripped her on her arrival in Martinique was sadly lacking as she stood by the rail of the boat which was taking her to Archangel and caught her first glimpse of Ste Victoire. She was alone, Mrs Brandon preferring to rest in one of the air-conditioned cabins, and so she had no one to influence her first reactions to the place that was to be her home.

It was inevitably a nervous arrival. Christina’s heart was frankly in her mouth as she saw how the boat had to edge its way past the crippling reef to get into the calm waters of the harbour, and she remembered uncomfortably how Mrs Brandon had warned her that they could be cut off in bad weather. It was June now, and she had read somewhere that summer was not the pleasantest season in this part of the Caribbean, with the possibility of hurricanes ever-present.

She sighed impatiently. There was little point in thinking like this. She was just making herself miserable. She was letting an absurd prediction, uttered to impress a crowd of credulous tourists, prey on her mind too much. After all, she had suffered none of these qualms back in England, when she could have retracted if she had wanted to. And she had also discovered, on Martinique, that this smiling Paradise could have its darker side, yet it would be foolish to allow this to outweigh all the other considerations. This, after all, was where Aunt Grace had wanted her to be, and she owed it to her godmother at least to try and give this new life a chance.

She lingered on deck as the boat docked, watching with fascination as the gangplank was run out and the freight and few passengers bound for the island began to be disembarked. An opulent car was drawn up on the quayside and a coloured man in a chauffeur’s uniform was standing beside it, leaning against the bonnet. Christina knew without being told that this was the transport from Archangel, and she went below to inform Mrs Brandon.

She was surprised and somewhat gratified to receive the beginnings of a wintry smile and even the command to see that all the luggage was collected and taken up on deck was delivered in reasonably amiable tones. Perhaps Mrs Brandon was pleased to be home and would mellow accordingly, she thought optimistically as she supervised the transfer of their cases.

She accompanied the older woman down the gangplank, carefully avoiding any appearance of concern or the offer of help. When they reached the quay, Mrs Brandon stood for a moment, white-lipped and an expression of strain tautening her clear-cut features, then she had herself under control again and was leading the way towards the car.

The chauffeur snatched off his cap and came to meet them, grinning broadly.

‘Welcome home, m’dame—missy.’

‘It’s good to be back, Louis.’ Mrs Brandon relinquished her cane to him and climbed into the back of the car. Christina watched as the chauffeur, in spite of the sticky warmth of the day, wrapped a silken rug around her feet and legs.

‘You may travel in the front, mon enfant,’ Mrs Brandon decreed autocratically, and Christina climbed obediently into the passenger seat. It was very hot in the car and she would have liked to have wound down the window, but something warned her that Mrs Brandon liked to travel in the equivalent of a Turkish bath and that she would do well to accept the situation. Anyway, she thought, surreptitiously pushing her hair off the nape of her neck, Ste Victoire wasn’t a very large island and they would soon be arriving at Archangel. She began to think longingly in terms of a shower and a cool drink.

The harbour area of the island did not strike her as being particularly attractive—a cluster of whitewashed buildings with corrugated iron roofs, many of which seemed to be in an advanced state of rust. The streets leading away from the harbour were narrow and crowded with every type of traffic. A lot of people, Christina noticed, were riding bicycles, many of them wobbling along precariously with large bundles on their heads or on the handlebars in front of them. Pavement stalls heaped high with exotically coloured fruit and vegetables threatened to spill into the road, and there seemed to be children and animals everywhere. She had to admire the imperturbable skill with which Louis negotiated his route, but she had to breathe a silent sigh of relief when the township was left behind, and they emerged on to a wider, straighter road which they seemed to have all to themselves.

But after they had been travelling a few minutes, Christina realised ruefully that width and straightness were its only attributes. In other ways, it was little better than a dirt track with gaping potholes every few yards, and although Louis restricted the speed at which they were travelling to allow for this, not even the car’s luxurious springing could save them from being jolted.

The road began to climb quite steeply after a few miles, and Christina could see the sea again in the distance, a deep fantastic blue merging unnoticeably with the sky. She caught her breath at its beauty, and Louis grinned broadly as he caught a glimpse of her rapt face.

‘You wait, missy.’

They were passing through cultivated fields, where people were working. Many of them straightened and waved as the car sped by, and Christina had a vision of Mrs Brandon sitting alone in the back, acknowledging the salutations with a regal movement of her hand, but she did not dare to turn round to see if she was right. She guessed, however, that this was the edge of the plantation that Mrs Brandon had mentioned. The size of it frankly amazed her, stretching away as far as the eye could see, and interspersed with clusters of dwellings, belonging, she surmised, to the plantation workers. It was like a little world within a world and Christina found herself wondering whether she would ever be familiar with all its workings. Everything—the heat, the parched-looking ground, the vivid blossoms on the trees and shrubs that lined the road—seemed so alien somehow after the gentleness of the English countryside. In spite of the neatness of the cultivated acres, bisected by irrigation channels, Christina had a sense of wildness, of a landscape that had not and never would be completely tamed.

She took a handkerchief from her shoulder bag and wiped the perspiration from her forehead and upper lip. The car was running along at the side of the coast now, the road falling away unnervingly to the silver beach far below. Christina gazed longingly at the creaming surf curling softly on to the sands, and imagined the faint salt-laden breeze that would be blowing off the sea. The heat inside the car was beginning to make her head throb, and she was aware of a slight feeling of nausea. Surely the journey couldn’t take much longer.

She leaned back against the padded seat, closing her eyes and trying to ignore the frequent lurches as the car coped with the uneven surface of the road. Then, just as she thought she was going to be forced to ask Louis to stop the car, the ordeal came to an end. The car slowed, turned sharply and settled on to a surface that felt as smooth as silk after the horrors of the past few miles. Half unwillingly, she opened her eyes and found that they were travelling suddenly under a cool green arch of trees.

‘Nearly home, missy.’ Louis’ voice at her side was brisk and reassuring and Christina realised gratefully that her discomfort had been noticed. She could not repress a feeling of excitement as the seconds passed.

One last, deep bend and the house lay in front of them, shaded by tall encircling trees. It was painted white, a long two-storey building with a wide terrace running its full length on the ground floor and echoed by the balcony with its wrought iron balustrade outside the upper rooms. In front of the house formal lawns, and flower beds vibrant with blossoms stretched away, and Christina noticed that there were sprinklers at work. The car stopped at the foot of the terrace steps and Christina saw that a tall woman was waiting at the front door to greet them. By her dark dress and spotless white apron, she guessed she was the housekeeper. She waited at the side of the car while Louis helped Mrs Brandon out. The air was warm and filled with a dozen pungent scents. Christina breathed deeply, feeling the tension that had possessed her slowly draining away. She looked up at the housekeeper and smiled rather shyly, but the other woman did not respond. At closer quarters, Christina saw that she still bore the traces of an earlier beauty, although her face was haggard now, the cheekbones prominent under the coffee-coloured skin.

‘Ah, Madame Christophe.’ Her cane firmly grasped, Mrs Brandon began a slow ascent of the wide shallow steps up to the terrace. ‘Is everything well?’

‘Very well, madame,’ the housekeeper replied in a low voice. ‘There have been no difficulties.’

Mrs Brandon paused on the terrace to regain her breath and then gestured towards Christina who was following in her wake with Louis, who was carrying their cases.

‘This is Miss Bennett, Madame Christophe. You received my cable?’

‘A room has been prepared for her.’ Madame Christophe’s dark eyes surveyed Christina indifferently. ‘Welcome to Archangel, mademoiselle.’

Turning, she led the way into the house. The entrance hall was large and square with a floor coolly tiled in blue and green mosaics. Christina saw that the principal rooms all seemed to open off this hall, and glancing up she saw that the first floor also took the form of a gallery. At the foot of the stairs and dominating the hall was a large statue in marble. Christina gazed at this wonderingly. It was a statue of a young man wearing armour and wielding a businesslike-looking spear with which he seemed about to kill some strange winged creature lying at his feet. The young man himself also possessed wings, she saw, a splendid pair, tipped with gold.

‘That is our protector, mademoiselle—St Michael the Archangel, for whom the plantation is named.’ Mrs Brandon’s voice was cool and slightly amused.

‘I see,’ Christina said quite untruthfully.

Mrs Brandon smiled. ‘I did tell you there was a story about it, did I not? It dates from the seventeenth century when the first family built a house here and began to grow sugar. It was all slave labour in those days, you understand. Well, one batch of new slaves brought disease with them. It spread over the island like wildfire—like the plague, it was. People were dying like flies. No remedy, no precaution seemed able to check it. So, as a last resort you might say, the islanders turned to prayer and to St Michael—they were all of the Catholic faith in those days.’

‘And did it work?’ Christina asked. ‘And why St Michael anyway?’

‘Because when plague had ravaged Italy during the years of the Early Church, the Archangel was said to have appeared on a church in Rome sheathing his sword as a sign that the plague would end.’ Mrs Brandon’s tone was bored.

‘Did the same thing happen here?’

‘There was no apparition, but the plague vanished almost overnight. The islanders declared it was a miracle, and since that time the plantation has been called Archangel in honour of St Michael. It is a tradition we have maintained. The statue is very old. It was brought from France as a private thanksgiving by the family.’ Mrs Brandon spoke as if she had learned her lines from a guide book of doubtful validity.