The Whispering Grove Read online

  Matching his cool formality, she said briskly: ‘I did no more than any compassionate person would have done seeing a small child make that long journey alone, Mr. Valmont.’

  For a moment he stared down at her, his eyes narrowed, perhaps reading the shade of reproof in her tone, for he said slowly: ‘I am well aware of the ordeal it must have been for Juliet. Unfortunately I was unable to make a more suitable arrangement. At this time I could not take leave to go and bring her over myself.’

  ‘You don’t have to explain,’ said Toni coldly, not sure why she should be moved to maintain an icy, almost defensive front before this man but knowing only that she must not betray the slightest sign of weakening. ‘As Juliet’s father her welfare is entirely your own business.’

  The grey eyes snapped, then unexpectedly he smiled. “You don’t sound in the least like the girl who was practically the sole subject of my daughter’s homecoming conversation last night.’ The smile glimmered. ‘Have I made a mistake?’

  You know perfectly well you’ve made no mistake, thought Toni bitterly, recalling the little scene at the airport and resisting the temptation to voice the retort aloud.

  ‘You wouldn’t be annoyed because I refused to allow Juliet to begin her kind of voluble introductions at a most unsuitable moment yesterday afternoon?’ he said quietly.

  So he did remember! And it had been deliberate! Toni’s suspicion was confirmed, the suspicion that began as puzzlement and developed into almost certainty now held no surprise. It had been disapproval she had read in that cool survey of her yesterday afternoon. It was all quite clear; he did not approve of Kit Manton, he did not approve of her stepmother, and because of that he did not approve of her. Forgotten now were her own perturbing feelings about Villa Aurelia. At least her stepmother — and even Kit Manton - were human; which was more than she could say about this autocratic, toffee-nosed individual.

  She gave the blankest stare she could assume and raised her brows. ‘Annoyed? I didn’t even notice. Should I—?’

  ‘Daddy! Where on earth have you got to? I want— Oh, there you are!’

  A small figure in brief lemon shorts and a white halter top burst into the clearing. It stopped, gave a cry of delight and launched itself towards Toni.

  ‘You’re here as well! I was just hoping we’d see you. Isn’t it lovely and hot? I’m going to get brown. Daddy ... ’ Juliet paused for breath and looked up at her father. ‘This is Toni. We came all the way from England together. Well,’ she surveyed the two silent adults, ‘are we going on the beach? I want to look for shells.’

  ‘There are some beautiful ones,’ said Toni without thinking. Juliet’s eyes rounded. ‘Where? Will you show me?’

  Toni hesitated, looking from the small, outstretched hand of invitation to the tall figure behind the child. How did one deal with this kind of situation?

  As though she sensed a restraint as yet beyond her understanding, Juliet’s smile faded and puzzlement clouded her small face. She upturned it to her father, and he said quite gently: ‘Toni may have other plans for her first morning here. You can’t expect her to drop everything and come shell-hunting with you at a moment’s notice.’

  ‘Oh.’ Juliet was solemn in her disappointment. ‘Have you got a lot of work to do?’

  ‘I have to unpack. I was so tired last night I couldn’t be bothered.’ Toni sighed. That, at least, was the truth. ‘Sorry, darling. But for that I’d have loved to hunt for shells with you.’

  ‘Oh, well.’ Juliet heaved a sigh. ‘There’s another day coming, Gran always says.’

  ‘Yes ...’ Toni looked about her, now wanting only to escape from a most uncomfortable situation and not having the faintest idea of the way back without trespassing any farther on the insufferable Justin Valmont’s property.

  As though he had followed her thoughts he said quickly: ‘If you follow this track to the right it brings you out on the road. Villa Aurelia is only about ten minutes’ walk - again on your right when

  you reach the road.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She backed a pace, casting a glance around the shadowed grove, then quickly, because for no reason at all her eyes were stinging with absurd tears, she murmured, ‘Goodbye, Juliet. I - I hope you’ll find lots of gorgeous shells,’ and before the tears could spill she darted blindly into the shadows of the trees.

  By the time she got back to the villa and found Marise and Norene breakfasting leisurely in housecoats she had succeeded in subduing the effects of that uncomfortable little scene in the grove. But her resentment of Valmont continued to linger. He so obviously intended to ensure that the brief, unsuitable acquaintance between herself and his daughter should end with the journey on which it had begun. Most of all she resented the way he had thrust the onus of rejection upon her, making it appear that she would have neither the time nor the inclination to indulge in childish pastimes like that of shell collecting.

  She sighed. There had been something rather touching about the spontaneous trust Juliet had given and she knew a sadness that it should be destroyed.

  As her first week on the island drew to its close she wondered how Juliet had settled down and reflected wistfully that the simple amusements provided by an unspoilt seashore and a child’s refreshing companionship would be infinitely preferable to the kind offered at Kit Manton’s night club in Port Cerello. Too much smoke and too much heat in an ill-lit, stifling atmosphere heavy with the interminable din of high voices and loud laughter which became more uninhibited by excess alcohol as the night wore on into dawn.

  Was this week a sample of her stepmother’s normal pattern of living? Sleep until almost noon, tea and cards and bitchy chatter in the afternoons, and dancing and drinking until the small hours of the morning?

  ‘Enjoy yourself last night?’ Marise asked at breakfast on Sunday morning.

  Yes, thank you.’ Toni tried to make the white lie convincing, knowing that Marise, in a well-meaning if misguided way, was trying to be kind. Thank heaven it was Sunday, she thought, realizing that she would never make her butterfly stepmother understand that the anodyne of cramming amusement into every waking hour did not always succeed in bringing forgetfulness. And the deliberate avoidance of the subject of her terminated career was in its way as painful as open discussion would have been.

  ‘You know, I thought young Trevor Herley was rather taken with you last night,’ Marise observed, pausing to frown and pick at a chip in her nail varnish. ‘Did he ask you out?’

  Toni shook her head. Trevor Herley at nineteen had radical views on the reorganization of the island’s sugar productivity. She had no illusions that she had been otherwise than a new ear into which he could air those opinions.

  ‘He will,’ said Marise confidently. ‘But you’ll have to encourage him a bit more.’

  Toni said nothing, having not the remotest desire to encourage any man. How could she when Kevin was still an aching hurt in her heart? As though the thought had winged her stepmother said suddenly:

  ‘What happened to that boy you used to write to us about? The one that composed music. What was his name? Ken ... no, Kevin.’ She stopped, her eyes suddenly shrewd. ‘It fell through?’

  ‘There wasn’t very much to fall through,’ Toni said quietly.

  Marise watched her sympathetically for a moment. ‘You’ll get over him, darling. And from your letters he did sound rather odd.

  Experimenting on a different musical scale or harmonics, whatever it was. I don’t know much about music.’ Marise paused and gave a vague gesture, then added brightly: ‘A few weeks of fun here and you’ll be falling for one of our handsome sugar planters, won’t she, Norene?’

  Her daughter, who had listened to the conversation with an air of languid amusement, gave a cynical smile. ‘Love? Oh, Mother, haven’t you discovered yet that it’s all just a myth?’ She shifted her glance to Toni. ‘Believe it or not, my mother still nurses secret ideas of romance. It’s positively Victorian.’

  You’re bitter, dar
ling.’ Marise betrayed no sign of annoyance. “You happened to be unlucky with your first love affair, like Toni has. But you’ve got Ray Sandanna now. He’s crazy over you.’

  ‘Yes.’ Norene sighed, the slight hardness of her young face softening to betray the hidden vulnerability of youth. She said abruptly: ‘Why don’t you change your hair-style, Toni? Have it cut short, or like mine.’ She smoothed her silky blonde tresses complacently. ‘I think it would make her look more attractive, not so serious. Don’t you think so, Mother?’

  Marise surveyed the neat coiled coronet of plaits on Toni’s small, well-shaped head and said doubtfully: ‘I don’t know. It is a bit severe, but it suits her. I suppose you got used to wearing it that way in the ballet. They all seem to wear their hair strained back from their faces.’

  ‘But she’s not in the ballet now,’ said Norene.

  There was a small silence, then Marise picked up her coffee cup and grimaced. ‘It’s gone cold. Make some more, Norene, there’s a dear.’

  Norene declined to move. ‘Why bother, you’ll only talk until it goes cold.’

  ‘I’ll make some.’ Toni grabbed the coffee pot and retreated thankfully to the kitchenette, grateful for the small diversion and that Sunday happened to be Obadeah’s day off. However, long before the water boiled Marise wandered aimlessly through the opening from the dining-room and lit a cigarette.

  Exhaling a long stream of smoke, she leaned against the cupboard and said, ‘What are we going to do today? Any ideas?’ she called over her shoulder to Norene.

  ‘I’m going to Irene Sandanna’s this afternoon. Ray’s picking me up at three.’

  ‘Oh!’ Marise frowned. ‘What about Toni?’

  Norene shrugged. ‘It’s awkward. She’d be the odd girl.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Marise. ‘It’s one of those sort of do’s.’

  Toni spooned instant coffee into the pot. ‘I’d like to walk. See something of the island.’

  ‘Walk!’ Marise looked astonished. ‘But there’s nothing—’ The burr of the telephone interrupted her, and when Norene went to answer its summons she went on: ‘There’s nothing to see. There’s

  only Port, and it’s dead on Sundays.’

  ‘I meant the countryside. It’s so beautiful. I d like to explore, see the hills and the cane fields.’

  ‘But you’ve seen it all from the car. That’s all there is. This is the residential part; most of the rest is just miles of sugar, and Indano is just a little shanty town. Only the sugar boys live there.’

  ‘It’s for you, Toni.’ Norene appeared, her face deadpan. ‘It’s a man.’

  ‘Me?’ Toni took a surprised step forward. ‘But ...’ She didn’t know anyone who would phone her; she hadn’t been here long enough to make telephone friends — men friends.

  ‘I bet it’ll be Trevor. What did I tell you?’ Marise exclaimed. ‘Hurry up, dear.’

  “Yes ...’ Still puzzled, Toni hurried into the hall and picked up the receiver. ‘Hello? Toni Sylvaine here.’

  A deep crisp voice came over the line. ‘Hello, Miss Sylvaine -Valmont here.’

  Justin Valmont! Now the voice clicked into place.

  ‘I must apologize for interrupting your Sabbath morning calm -(was there an inflection of sarcasm in those tones?) - but I have an urgent request on behalf of my daughter.’

  ‘Juliet ... is she all right?’

  ‘I’m afraid Juliet is suffering from a surfeit of sun and too much fresh fruit.’ There was slight roughening of anxiety in Valmont’s tones. ‘I blame myself for not foreseeing this and the possibility of the change of climate upsetting her. Yes—’ he checked her instinctive exclamation of alarm, ‘I’ve had the doctor. She’s been very sick, but it’s settled now, we hope. The point is she’s a wan little girl who has to stay quiet and rest for a day or two and she wondered if you would come and visit her.’

  ‘Oh, poor Juliet. I’m so sorry. Yes, of course I’ll come and see her.’ Without knowing it, the warmth of Toni’s concern had made her voice very tender. ‘When shall I come? Today?’

  ‘If you’re free,’ said Justin Valmont, “but don’t cancel any arrangements you may have made. Make it tomorrow if it’s more convenient.’

  She said hastily, ‘My time is my own. When did this sickness start?’

  ‘Thursday night.’

  Toni bit her lip. ‘I wish I’d known. I mean, I’d do anything to help,’ she added awkwardly.

  ‘As a matter of fact I found her trying to phone you herself yesterday,’ he said, ‘and to please her I tried your number a couple of times last night, but without response.’

  ‘We were out most of yesterday,’ she said in a small voice, suddenly furious for the pointless hours spent roistering with her stepmother and Kit Manton’s crowd. Suddenly Juliet seemed much more important. ‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured.

  ‘Why should you be?’ His voice sounded so indifferent she recoiled a little. ‘You couldn’t know. Now, may I tell Juliet you’ll be here this afternoon about four?’

  ‘Yes, I won’t be late. Is there anything I can bring her?’ she asked, then realized the emptiness of the question. Where, on a Sunday morning, could she buy anything to amuse a sick child that Justin Valmont would not already have supplied?

  ‘I can’t think of anything, except yourself,’ he said dryly. ‘Thank you. I’ll send Tom over to collect you about ten to four. All right?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said slowly, and before she could think of anything else to say she heard his brief ‘Good-bye’ and the click of the closed line.

  CHAPTER THREE

  After her surprise at the unexpected call from Valmont had ebbed a mounting impatience possessed Toni as the appointed time neared and her generous impulse to take some small token to the child returned.

  One plaited coil pinned neatly in place, the other still a cloud of bluish-sheened hair vibrant from a vigorous brushing, she paused and stared at her reflection in the dressing-table mirror. What could she take to cheer up Juliet? Anything edible, even if she had it, would be unsuitable. Toys, books ... she shook her head; she hadn’t a single thing suitable for an eight-year-old.

  Slowly she formed the tress of hair into its smooth plait and twisted it into place, her eyes critical as they looked for the stray end that would mar the neatness. Through the half open door of her room she could hear Norene’s radio in the next room and she idly followed the melody as she outlined her mouth with clear vivid coral. Then she stiffened, lipstick arrested in mid-air, as the first notes of a plaintive, well-known song began. Her eyes shadowed and she sat immobile, fighting the sudden desire to close the door on that melody. Abruptly she moved, to open her dressing-table drawer and grope under the layer of undies. She knew now what she would give Juliet.

  The little blue musical box was in the shape of a piano; when the floral painted lid was raised a tiny ballerina doll sprang up and slowly pirouetted to the tinkling strains of La Vie En Rose. It wasn’t an expensive musical box; the doll didn’t stand quite straight, and there were little blobs of glue visible on the cheap blue satin round the mirror in the lid, but it was the only thing

  Kevin had ever given her.

  When she closed her eyes she could see quite clearly that grey, rain-washed street and the market stall piled with tawdry bargains, and she could still hear the laughter in Kevin’s voice when he said: ‘Why shouldn’t we waste our money for once? You want — I’ll buy. It’s us, darling. A little ballerina and a piano. It’ll do for your mascot, bring you luck ...’

  Her face set, Toni rubbed at a tiny smear of powder on one corner before she wound the tiny key and raised the lid. The little pink plastic doll, a wisp of white net glued round its waist, began its stiff, jerky gyration, until the plaintive, nostalgic notes faltered and slowed into silence and the little dancer stood still ...

  Abruptly she snapped the lid shut. She was crazy to cling to sentimental memories which could bring only renewed pain. Far better to part with it and forget it, to ho
pe that it might bring a moment of pleasure to Juliet.

  She found some tissue paper and wrapped up the musical box, feverishly now, as though she were anxious to banish it from her sight as quickly as possible. She was thrusting it into her straw beach bag when Norene, after a perfunctory tap, came into the room.

  Norene smiled, noting the tissue-wrapped package before she assessed the attractive picture Toni made in the slim, semi-fitting coral silk dress with its wide scooped neckline and edging of white embroidered flowers. She pursed her lips and nodded approval.

  ‘I like that. It suits your colouring. But why not make this the occasion to let your hair down?’

  Something in Norene’s expression brought a slight narrowing between Toni’s dark arched brows. She said, ‘To see Juliet? Why should I?’

  Norene shrugged. ‘It’s rather an interesting occasion.’ She perched on the end of the bed and looked amused. ‘At least you’re starting with an advantage none of us had.’

  The small frown of bewilderment persisted on Toni’s face, and her stepsister laughed openly. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, stop playing the dimwit. As if you didn’t know I was talking about the most attractive man on this half-alive island. All right, sweetie, have it your own way. You’re just going to see little Juliet, who seems to have taken a liking to you. And you’re taking a little present. Good move, that.’

  The perfectly genuine bewilderment fell from Toni’s face at last as she realized what Norene was getting at. Too surprised to be annoyed, she exclaimed: ‘You mean Mr. Valmont? Juliet’s father! You think because I—’ In amazement she stared at Norene. ‘But I hardly know the man!’

  ‘Well, now you’re going to have the chance. And good luck to you.’ Norene grinned. ‘You’ll need it.’

  ‘Need it?’ Annoyance tinted Toni’s cheeks with rose and she recalled her sole meeting with Justin Valmont. ‘I don’t need it, and I don’t want it, thank you.’

  ‘All right, don’t protest.’ Norene rested her hands behind her and stretched out long slim legs which she regarded with a certain satisfaction before she glanced up at Toni’s pink cheeks. She smiled with deliberation. ‘You may as well try your hand. We all have. You can always fall back on Trevor Herley.’