66 The Love Pirate Read online

  When she finished there was a long silence. She had been unable to look at him while she was speaking, but now Mrs. Henderson turned her head to see how Lord Saire had taken it.

  As she did so, she thought to herself, ‘it’ll doubtless come as a shock to him to know how people talk about him, but it’ll do him good! He is far too conscious of his own importance for my liking.’

  Lord Saire appeared to be thinking deeply and finally he said,

  “How did Bertilla know that there was a ship leaving Singapore for Sarawak this afternoon?”

  “She insisted on finding out when it would be going and my husband has a list of sailings to all the different islands.”

  “I see – then you sent her into Singapore?”

  “I took her,” Mrs. Henderson corrected. “You don’t imagine that I would let that poor child go off on her own?”

  She looked searchingly at Lord Saire as she added,

  “Believe me, I begged and pleaded with her to wait until you returned – in fact I almost went down on my knees – but she wouldn’t listen! She was in a dreadful hurry to get away and short of physically keeping her a prisoner there was nothing I could do about it.”

  “I think I can understand,” Lord Saire said slowly.

  With a perception that was unusual he understood Bertilla’s urgent determination to leave simply because she was so different from any other woman he had ever known.

  What had happened last night had been, as she told him, so wonderful, so perfect that she could not bear it to be spoilt.

  Because it would mean something to her for the rest of her life, because it was rapture she had never experienced before and thought would never happen again, she could not bear to stay.

  She was asking nothing of him, expecting nothing, only wishing to keep what she had already untarnished not only from the world but also from him.

  It was almost as if he could read her thoughts and feelings.

  After what she had heard, thinking she was doing what he would want, she had gone out of his life as unexpectedly as she had come into it.

  For the first time for many years Lord Saire looked deeply into himself and was appalled by what he saw.

  Once when he had been young and idealistic he had thought of women with respect and they had seemed to him to be precious creatures to whom a man should give both his homage and his allegiance.

  He had loved his mother very deeply and she had been everything that he thought a woman should be, gentle, compassionate and understanding.

  She had loved his father with a selfless devotion that had made their marriage an idyllic one such as Lord Saire had never found elsewhere.

  Their only sorrow had been that their son was an only child and in consequence he had been spoilt.

  Because he had found such happiness and perfection at home he had gone out into the world with such high standards that it was inevitable that he should become disillusioned.

  He had been at first horrified by the way married women were ready to be unfaithful to their husbands, to give only lip-service to their marriage vows and to fall overwhelmingly in love with any man like himself who took their fancy.

  He had been horrified and yet inevitably he had connived at their infidelity and accepted the favours he was offered so freely.

  He would have been inhuman if he had not done so.

  But at the same time, something within him wept that his idols had feet of clay and that no woman remained long on the pedestal for which by nature she was intended.

  Always, he thought now, at the back of his mind he had measured the women with whom he was infatuated by the standards set for him by his mother.

  When she died he knew there was a place in his heart that no other woman could ever fill.

  Yet after her death he seemed to become more frequently and more easily involved in love affairs which, fiery and tempestuous to begin with, soon palled and left him once again bored and disillusioned.

  He knew now it was because he had been seeking not only the love that his mother had given him and which he missed unbearably but also the love she had for his father.

  This was what he knew he must find if he was to marry and have any chance of happiness.

  It was because he was so desperately afraid of making a mistake, of accepting second best rather than a marriage of true love that he told himself and his friends like d’Arcy Charington that he would never marry.

  He could never, he thought, be fortunate enough to find a woman like his mother whose character and personality would bring him what he needed.

  A woman who would love him wholeheartedly, as he would love her, so that there would never be any question of there being another man in her life.

  He had so often been the lover of women who had kind and decent husbands.

  He had contributed to the break-up of many marriages that were collapsing privately, if not publicly, so he knew only too well what he would abhor and shrink from in his own private life.

  ‘Never,’ he vowed. ‘Never, never will I marry a woman who could be promiscuous behind my back and deceive me with my closest friends. A woman who would indulge in an intrigue when I was not at her side and be blatantly unfaithful in other people’s houses and doubtless, if it suited her, in my own.’

  Everything that was decent, everything that was idealistic within him, felt revolted when the women who said they loved him sneered or laughed at their husbands.

  He also abhorred those who, like Lady Alvinston, turned their backs on their responsibility for their children and the example they should set for them.

  All this had combined to make Lord Saire afraid of marriage, afraid of committing himself to an irrevocable way of life, which would inevitably end in disaster.

  Now, as everything he had done and everything he had felt swept before his eyes, he found himself remembering the kiss he had given Bertilla last evening in the garden.

  All night he had felt the softness of her lips and the quiver of her body against his.

  He had known that the sensation that had aroused them both had been different from anything he had ever experienced before.

  She was so lovely in a different way from any other woman he had ever seen.

  But there was something deeper and far more important than the desire she aroused in him or the irresistible passion of his lips.

  He had felt something else and he knew that it was in fact sacred, although he was too shy to acknowledge the word.

  Bertilla was very young and very inexperienced, but at the same time she had a fundamental sensibility that came not from any physical emotion but from something intensely spiritual.

  It would have been impossible, Lord Saire told himself, for him to think or even to imagine such an idea a few weeks ago.

  He had given and taken thousands of kisses, but there had never been one like that which he had given Bertilla last night, to which she had responded with her whole being.

  He knew now that she had given him her soul and that it was a gift he had never been offered before.

  At the same time she had awakened something in him which he had thought was long dead – his idealism.

  Once again he saw himself as a Knight riding forth to fight for the purity of a woman and not only to love her because she was human, but also to worship her because she was Divine.

  ‘This is what I have been seeking all my life!’ he thought.

  It seemed incredible that it had been there and he had only to put out his hand to touch it, yet he had only realised it was a miracle when it had gone.

  Unaware what he was doing or even that he had moved, Lord Saire rose from the chair in which he had been sitting to stand on the edge of the veranda,

  “Where are you going, Lord Saire?” Mrs. Henderson asked.

  He had been thinking so deeply that he had forgotten she was there sitting beside him.

  Now, because he wished to confirm it to himself, he answered her truthfully and positively
,

  “I am going to Sarawak!”

  Chapter Six

  Lying awake as the steamer chugged its way through the night, Bertilla could think only of Lord Saire.

  She imagined that she was close in his arms and felt herself thrill once again as his lips touched hers.

  She was not conscious that the cabin, small and rather dirty, was stiflingly hot, she could not for the moment even feel afraid of what lay ahead.

  She believed that, in leaving the man who had kissed her, she left behind her whole heart.

  She knew that never again would she fall in love, she was sure that she was one of those women who would love once and once only in her life.

  She could no longer picture in her mind some imaginary husband as she had done in the past, because as far as she was concerned there would forever and always be only one man in the whole world.

  “I love him!” she whispered into the night.

  As she had told him, words were utterly inadequate to express her feelings.

  She rose as soon as it was dawn and washed and dressed as best she could in the tiny cabin, which was piled high with her belongings.

  She thought that she had not thanked Mrs. Henderson enough for her kindness and for the enormous amount of clothes that had been packed for her in three leather trunks.

  In her wild desire to get away, she could think of nothing but Lord Saire and that she was, as Lady Ellenton had said so truly, clinging to him and embarrassing him in the process.

  ‘How could he possibly want me?’ she asked herself.

  And when he moved to Singapore, there would not only be the Governor and public affairs demanding his attention, but also the woman he had once loved!

  She would be beautiful and sophisticated and would renew for him all he had enjoyed in the past.

  She thought of how once again Lady Ellenton had called Lord Saire scornfully ‘the Love Pirate’.

  Yet if he had plundered her of her love and her heart, she must seem to him a very small and insignificant little vessel compared with the big ships he had captured in the past and would go on capturing in the future.

  “He will forget me,” she said decisively, “but I will never, never, if I live to be a hundred, ever forget him!”

  All the same, however fraught her feelings were on leaving the man she loved, she could not help being interested as later the following day they drew near to Kuching, which was the Capital and Port of Sarawak.

  As she moved about the crowded deck where most of the passengers had slept the night, she found they were many nationalities, but mostly Malayan and they smiled at her in a friendly fashion and she smiled back.

  She was not able to converse with them and she was in fact rather glad when an old white-haired trader singled her out.

  She was not at all afraid of him, for there was something pleasant and fatherly about him, which did not in any way resemble Mr. Van de Kaempfer’s approach.

  “Is this your first visit to Sarawak, young lady?” he asked.

  “It is,” she replied, “and I believe it is a very beautiful country.”

  “Beautiful indeed!” he replied. “But still very primitive and the people are hard to trade with.”

  “Why is that?” Bertilla asked.

  “Because they’re not really interested in money,” he replied. “Unlike most of the world, they are happy enough without it.”

  When Bertilla looked at him in surprise, he added,

  “There are areas being cultivated with pineapples and roads being built, but there’s a long way to go before they learn that we need their gutta-percha and sago.”

  “Is that all you can buy from them?” Bertilla asked interestedly.

  “A few diamonds,” the old man answered, “birds’ nests, bêche-de-mer or as you may call it ‘sea cucumber’, and bezoar stones, but the majority of the population would rather go headhunting than grow anything I want.”

  Bertilla felt herself shudder.

  “Are they still – cutting off the heads of – people?”

  There was no mistaking the apprehension in her voice and the old trader smiled kindly.

  “You’ll be safe enough,” he said. “They’re not likely to touch a white woman, but you have to understand that headhunting is part of their lives. It’ll take a great many years before the White Rajah or anyone else persuades them to give it up.”

  Bertilla was silent, wishing absurdly that Lord Saire were there to protect her and the old trader continued,

  “When a young Dyak comes of age, no matter how handsome he may be, the girls of his tribe think little of him until he has at least two or three heads to his credit.”

  “Two or three – heads!” Bertilla repeated in a whisper.

  “He can sing his love songs and dance his war dances,” the trader went on, “but always there comes the question, ‘how many heads hast thou taken?’”

  “So what do the men do?” Bertilla asked, knowing it was an unnecessary question.

  “They go hunting,” the trader replied, “and when a man returns with his trophy, preparations are made for a great feast – ‘the Feast of the Dried Heads.”

  “But – surely the Missionaries can – persuade them that it is – wrong?”

  The trader laughed.

  “From what I’ve seen of the Missionaries, they are more trouble than they’re worth. Most of them convert only the foolish who are too afraid to run away from them or those who are crafty and think they’ve something to gain from the white man.”

  Bertilla was silent, feeling there was nothing she could say and that once again she was alone in the world with nobody to look after her and no one she could turn to.

  “Now don’t worry yourself,” the trader said as if he realised that he had upset her. “You’ll find the Dyaks are pleasant people and look very fine indeed when they wear their waving plumes of war and their shields covered with the tufts of hair taken from the heads of those they have murdered!”

  Involuntarily Bertilla gave a little cry and he added,

  “They’ll smile at you, wearing coloured beads glittering round their necks and looking for all the world as if butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths!”

  He certainly had done nothing to allay Bertilla’s fears and yet, when they first turned from the sea into the Sarawak River, she felt her whole being uplifted by the broad winding beauty of its pale brown water.

  Above it was the Santuborg Mountain, wonderfully shaped and majestic, covered with a thick cloak of trees and at its foot a soft sandy beach shaded by casuarina trees.

  The banks of the river were covered with fruit trees, many of which were in blossom and there were little villages clamped onto the mud banks, looking as if the palm-leaved houses had been tumbled from a basket and left exactly where they fell.

  There were coffee-coloured women standing naked to the waist deep in the water with long bamboo jars upon their shoulders and children too young even to walk diving and swimming amongst them like little brown tadpoles.

  Along the uncultivated banks were pale green mangroves and behind them rose the jungle with tall majestic trees and monkeys swinging from branch to branch.

  It was so lovely that Bertilla drew in her breath and longed to tell Lord Saire about it. She knew that he would understand her feelings and share them.

  He loved beauty and it meant so much to him as it did to her.

  Reminding herself that she would probably never see him again, she ceased her train of thoughts. She felt that, even though he would never know it, he would expect her to be brave and try to understand the people of Sarawak, as he tried to appreciate those of the different countries he came into contact with.

  They tied up against a primitive quay and there were people crowding down to see the steamer come in and to welcome its passengers whether they knew them or not.

  There was a great deal of noise and hurly-burly.

  When finally Bertilla found herself walking down the gangplank, sh
e saw among the beautiful brown smiling people milling about below her a tall gaunt figure who she recognised instantly.

  She thought that it would be impossible for her Aunt Agatha not to stand out in any crowd, wherever she might be, but particularly here where she looked like a giant among pygmies and a very unpleasant awe-inspiring giant at that.

  She had grown grimmer and uglier with age.

  It was not only her weather-beaten face that seemed to Bertilla more disagreeable than she remembered, but she had also lost her front teeth, which gave her a strange almost sinister expression.

  “So you have arrived!” she said in the hard harsh voice that seemed to Bertilla to echo back from her childhood.

  “Yes, I am here, Aunt Agatha.”

  Her aunt made no effort to kiss her or even to shake her hand, but merely turned and spoke aggressively to the three porters who were carrying Bertilla’s trunks.

  Bertilla felt almost ashamed that her trunks were so large and heavy while the little men who were carrying them were so small.

  Her aunt was ordering them about in a way that made her feel uncomfortable.

  Then she said,

  “This is the third time I have met the streamer. It’s just like your mother not to tell me the exact date you would be arriving.”

  “I don’t think Mama knew that the steamer left Singapore only once every fortnight,” Bertilla explained, “and besides that, I was delayed because the ship I travelled on from England caught fire in the Malacca Straits.”

  If she had thought to surprise her aunt, she was unsuccessful.

  “On fire?” Agatha Alvinston said sharply. “Did you lose your clothes? If so I will not be able to provide you with more, you may be certain of that!”

  “There is no need for you to provide me with anything, Aunt Agatha,” Bertilla replied quietly. “Mrs. Henderson, with whom I stayed when we came ashore, provided me with everything new. It was very kind of her.”

  “More money than sense, I should have thought,” her aunt replied irritably.

  As they were talking, they had walked away from the quayside and now they were moving along a street with wooden houses on either side of it and, because they were all down on the quay, there were few people about.