Sweet Enchantress Read online

  “Mr. Edie Morgan, Mr. Victor Jacobetti,” and finally – surprisingly, because she had been last in coming out of the car – “Miss Kate Hanover.”

  “Hi, boys,” a shrill voice called. “Wait for me. What’s the rush?”

  She came hurrying after them, a swirl of honey-coloured mink, jangling bracelets and flashing eyes. Her platinum silver hair hung to her shoulders and her red nails were an inch long. There was an almost overpowering fragrance of expensive perfume.

  Zaria stared at her in sheer astonishment. She had never before in her life seen anyone quite like Miss Hanover and she had never in her wildest dreams anticipated that such a girl was likely to be found on an archaeological expedition.

  But the Captain was introducing her,

  “This is Miss Brown, Mr. Virdon, and she has something to tell you about another guest, Mr. Tanner.”

  “Mr. Tanner?” Mr. Virdon repeated, shaking Zaria perfunctorily by the hand.

  “Here, what’s this?” the short middle-aged man called Edie Morgan asked. “We weren’t expecting a party aboard.”

  “One moment, Edie,” Mr. Virdon interrupted. “Suppose we ask Miss Brown to explain.”

  Blushing and feeling herself tremble with embarrassment because they were all looking at her, Zaria began to stammer,

  “I-I hope you won’t mind. It’s – it’s just that – Mr. Tanner felt – ”

  “I am afraid my fiancé is rather shy,” Chuck said in his deep voice. “I am hoping, Mr. Virdon, you will forgive me for barging in like this, but we didn’t want to let you down at the last moment, knowing how insistent you had been that a secretary should be provided aboard the yacht.

  “The truth of the matter is that Miss Brown and I have just become engaged and we didn’t want to be parted. So we talked it over and decided it would be best if I came along. I can be of quite a lot of assistance, as it happens, because I can speak Arabic and also know a little about archaeology.”

  “Well, this is certainly a surprise!” Mr. Virdon said uncertainly. “We are, of course, delighted to have Mr. er – Tanner with us.”

  “As he says, he can make himself useful,” Mr. Jacobetti ejaculated.

  He was a young man with a vacant face that was somehow belied by his sharp, shrewd little eyes. Pig’s eyes, Zaria thought they were, as they had peered at her in a manner that told her instinctively that he was thinking of her as a very unattractive female.

  “O.K! That’s settled,” Edie Morgan said, as if it was he who was making the decision. “And now, what about a drink?”

  “I felt that you might be wanting a meal, sir,” the Captain said, “and the Steward has everything arranged in the Saloon.”

  “I guess I can do with something a good deal stronger than food after that ghastly journey,” Kate Hanover said in her shrill nasal voice.

  As if they all agreed, the three men followed Kate and the Captain down the companionway to the Saloon. Zaria and Chuck were left on deck to look at each other in astonishment.

  “Strange people,” Chuck said softly.

  “I did not imagine Mr. Virdon would be like that,” Zaria said. “All the archaeologists I have met before looked as if they had gone to bed in their clothes!”

  “This is obviously the exception to the rule,” Chuck said. “Come on, let’s go to bed. You look all in. You may be quite certain they don’t want to see either of us again tonight.”

  She obeyed him because she was desperately tired. She had not slept the night before for worrying.

  She did not expect to spend a restful night, but the moment her head touched the pillow she had slipped into a deep slumber, which not even the hooting of the ships, the noise of the cranes or the rumble of the docks had been able to disturb.

  Only as she heard the ship’s engines start up had she opened her eyes and then hurriedly got up and dressed.

  Now she looked at Chuck and realised that he too must have slept well. The strain that had been on his face the day before had gone and, although he wore his dark glasses, she felt that his eyes were twinkling.

  She wished that he would not wear his glasses indoors as well as out. There was something uncanny, she thought, in not being able to see his eyes clearly.

  “Chuck!” she said suddenly. “Have you really no money at all? What are you going to do when you reach Algiers?”

  “Oh, I shall manage all right when I get there,” he answered easily. “You know the trouble with you, Zaria, is that you are too serious. Don’t you ever laugh like other girls? Since we have met, I believe you’ve only smiled once or twice.”

  “I think I must have got out of the way of smiling.”

  “Tell me why?”

  Zaria shook her head.

  “I want to forget it,” she said. “And perhaps it is best for neither of us to be too confidential. We are only ships that pass in the night.”

  He put out his hand and covered hers.

  “And you, if I may say so, are a very kind little mercy ship.”

  The door behind them opened and Edie Morgan came out. He looked distinctly unpleasant, Zaria thought. He was wearing a purple brocade dressing gown with the legs of his orange striped pyjamas showing beneath it.

  “Oh, there you are, Miss Brown,” he said, ignoring Chuck. “I want to send a cablegram off at once. We have a wireless operator, I suppose?”

  “Yes – I think so – ” Zaria said a little nervously, taking a notebook and pencil from her handbag.

  “Then take this down. ‘Madame Bertin, Rue Clemenceau 15, Lyons III, stop, Will meet you Tarralisa tomorrow noon, stop, bring Ahmed, suggest he drives other car, stop, reply, stop, Edie, stop’. Have you got that?”

  “Yes,” Zaria replied.

  “Then send it off at once. She should have reached Lyons by now.”

  He said the last words almost to himself and turned towards the door, but Chuck’s voice arrested him.

  “Are we going to Tarralisa, sir? I thought we were heading for Algiers.”

  For a moment it seemed as if Mr. Morgan was going to tell Chuck to mind his own business and then the expression on his face, from being an almost aggressive one, changed.

  “I suppose I should have explained, Miss Brown,” he said. “We have arranged to pick up two of our guests at Tarralisa. One of them is Madame Bertin, a woman who is acknowledged to be one of the greatest dress designers in Paris. She’s planning to open a shop in Algiers. That’s why she’s coming with us. You’ll find her a real person.”

  With these words Mr. Morgan turned and walked away.

  “Then we are not going straight to Algiers,” Zaria said. “Oh, I am sorry. I know how anxious you are to get there.”

  “It doesn’t matter. A day won’t make all that difference,” Chuck answered.

  “I will get this cablegram off,” Zaria said and hurried up to the Wireless Officer.

  Later she went down to the office where she found Chuck looking up the distance from Marseilles to Tarralisa on a map.

  “I suppose we can get the yacht in there,” he said. “I think it’s a funny place to pick up anyone.”

  “I should have thought it would be a long and difficult journey from Lyons in twenty-four hours,” Zaria replied.

  “You’re right,” he agreed. “Listen, there’s nothing we can do here. You come up on deck and get some sunshine. That’s what you want. And by the way I suppose you know you shouldn’t walk about in those high-heeled shoes.”

  “I-I haven’t got any others,” Zaria confessed.

  “Well, mine are certainly no use to you,” he said. “I will go and have a talk with Jim the Steward.”

  He went away and in about five minutes came back with a pair of white plimsolls in his hand.

  “Size four,” he said. “Any use?”

  “They are only half a size too big. They will be perfect,” Zaria answered. “But whom do they belong to?”

  “Well, I gather that a year ago they had a very small cabin boy on board. He
only stayed a short time because he was such a nuisance, but, as the owner of the yacht provided clothes for the crew, it was one of her eccentricities, according to the Steward and they brought in a supply of clothes, which haven’t been worn since. I’ve told him to put a sweater and a pair of trousers in your cabin.”

  “For me?” Zaria asked.

  “Well, why not?” he enquired. “You will be much more comfortable than you will be wearing that suit. And however many smart things you have, you won’t be able to compete with Miss Hanover.”

  “I was not going to try,” Zaria said.

  She wondered if Chuck guessed that the coat, skirt and blouse she was wearing were actually the only clothes she had with her.

  She thought now that she was mad not to have bought something in Marseilles. But she had been too frightened to do anything except what she had been told to do, go from the Station to the hotel and wait there for instructions from the yacht.

  “I-I will try the things on,” she said a little shyly.

  The shoes were certainly more comfortable even if they were a little big. And the white woollen sweater with the yacht’s name embroidered across the front was cosy and warm.

  The trousers made her feel shy. Never in her life before had she thought of wearing trousers.

  She was in fact so thin that she looked exactly like a boy. But it was one thing to look at herself in the mirror, quite another to walk back to the cabin in search of Chuck.

  It took all her resolution not to run away and hide when he turned to look at her.

  “That’s better,” he said. “And now let’s go up into the open air. That’s my prescription for putting roses into your cheeks.”

  There was something about his breezy indifference that was infinitely reassuring. She followed him gratefully up the companionway and into the sunshine.

  The sea had more colour now. The sun was rising in the sky and the mists had gone.

  Zaria felt the sun warm on her face and the wind in her hair and then the tears came into her eyes.

  It was so lovely, so incredibly beautiful! In forty-eight hours her life had completely changed.

  She felt different. There was new life coming to her body and she wasn’t alone. At least Chuck, strange and mysterious as he might be, was a friend.

  She tried not to think what would happen when he went away. She tried not to admit, even to herself, how glad she was that they were going to Tarralisa instead of Algiers.

  “I like the sea!” Chuck said suddenly. “Did I tell you that amongst my other travels I once went to Iceland on a whaling expedition? It was one of the most exciting things I’ve ever done in my life.”

  “Men are so lucky,” Zaria sighed. “Whatever happens, there’s always something exciting for them to do. Women are handicapped in every way, especially if they are not brave.”

  “They should be brave,” he answered.

  “And if they are not, if they are just silly – little – frightened fools?” Zaria asked with a little throb in her voice.

  He smiled at that.

  “If you are talking about yourself, you’ve got it all wrong. I think you have a lot of courage. It took courage to bring me here and I shall always be grateful to you. One day perhaps I shall be able to thank you for it.”

  She said nothing, but his words left a little glow of warmth round her heart.

  And then he went on,

  “By the way we mustn’t talk like this again. It’s dangerous. In a yacht even the walls have ears and outside it’s just the same. Words carry on the wind or a porthole may be open below decks. And remember another thing don’t be quite so stiff with me. I’m your fiancé!”

  “I will try,” Zaria said obediently.

  Then she saw Mr. Virdon, resplendent in his white trousers and yachting jacket, come up the companionway.

  He was wearing dark glasses and he flopped down into one of the comfortable chairs under the sun awning.

  Resolutely Zaria left Chuck and walked across to him.

  “Good morning, Mr. Virdon! I was wondering whether you had any notes you would like me to type or if there are any particular instructions you would like to give me for when we arrive at Algiers.”

  “No, no, nothing,” Mr. Virdon said. “You had better see Edie about all that.”

  “I will talk to Mr. Morgan then,” Zaria said and then added, “I was wondering where you were thinking of excavating. I am guessing that it might be Tipasa. I hear the excavations a few years ago uncovered the perron of a Temple – but perhaps you have another place in mind?”

  “Ask Edie about it,” Mr. Virdon said. “For goodness sake ask Edie.”

  There was an irritability in his voice that Zaria could not possibly ignore. Realising that she was being a nuisance, she moved away, a flush on her face.

  She went to the bow of the ship and sat down with her back against a coil of rope, watching the sea shimmering in the rising sun.

  She was half-asleep when finally she was aware of someone coming towards her.

  “Luncheon is nearly ready,” Chuck announced.

  “Then I’ll go and wash,” she said. “And, Chuck – ”

  “Yes?” he enquired.

  “Wait for me in the office. I don’t want to go into the Saloon alone.”

  “All right,” he said. “But don’t be long.”

  “I will not be a minute,” Zaria promised him.

  She ran down the companionway to her cabin. She washed her hands and ran a comb through her hair.

  She tried not to look at her trousers as they made her feel embarrassed, but the white sweater undoubtedly gave her a nautical air. Feeling suddenly rather gay, she hurried to open the door of the office.

  “I’m ready,” she smiled.

  Chuck was standing at the other side of the writing desk with a piece of paper in his hand.

  He looked up.

  “There’s something here that I want you to look at,” he said. “It will amuse you.”

  Zaria walked across towards him and then, to her astonishment, as she reached him he put his arm round her shoulders. She looked up at him in surprise, stiffening instinctively at his touch.

  “Darling,” he said in a voice low and deep with apparent emotion, “I love you!”

  For a moment Zaria thought Chuck must have taken leave of his senses.

  His arm round her shoulders, the closeness of his face threw her into what was almost a panic and she winced away from him, a cry of something like fear on her lips.

  Then she realised that he was holding a piece of paper before her eyes and wordlessly commanding her to read it.

  For a moment the words on the paper seemed to dance before her eyes. She was only conscious of Chuck, of the strength and bigness of him, and then they steadied and she saw that he had written,

  “Someone is listening to every word we say. Play up.”

  “Actually I am rather angry with you,” Chuck murmured, still holding her close.

  “Angry!” Zaria managed to say.

  The word seemed to stick on her tongue and to come almost thickly from her lips.

  “Yes, angry because you haven’t been with me all the morning. What have you been thinking about, you funny little thing, looking out to sea with that wistful look in your eyes? Aren’t you happy? Listen, Zaria! We won’t worry about my relations or anyone else. We’ll get married soon very soon.”

  Zaria managed to make some sort of sound in answer. She was trying to obey Chuck’s instructions to play up, but somehow everything seemed to have gone out of her head.

  “I-I think it’s time for lunch,” she managed to say at last.

  “You are being maddening,” he replied, still in that deep voice that sounded so unlike his usual tones.

  “Maddening, but I love you. Remind me to keep telling you that, my little sweetheart.”

  He stopped speaking and looked down at her. For one terrifying moment she thought that he might be about to kiss her.

&nb
sp; Then with a laugh he released her.

  “All right,” he said. “I know you are hungry and I shall hope you will be nicer to me after lunch. Come along, I could do with a drink, I don’t know about you.”

  He took her hand almost as if she were a child and led her along to the Saloon.

  Mr. Virdon was sitting there at the head of the table, a gin and tonic in his hand.

  “What is happening to everybody?” he asked querulously as they entered.

  “I’m sorry, sir, if we are late,” Chuck said. “I was talking to Mr. Jacobetti and rather lost count of the time.

  “What’s Victor got to say?” Mr. Virdon asked.

  “We were talking about aeroplanes,” Chuck answered.

  It seemed to Zaria that Mr. Virdon almost looked relieved.

  “Oh, Victor’s quite a boy in the air,” he remarked.

  The door opened to admit first Kate and then Edie Morgan. Kate was really very pretty, Zaria thought in astonishment. Last night she had merely thought her fantastic, but in the daylight there was no doubt about her good looks.

  Her skin, tanned golden, doubtless by artificial sunshine, was a vivid contrast to the soft silver blonde of her hair.

  She was wearing jeans and a tight sweater, useful in theory, but its real purpose was obviously to reveal the enticing seductive curves of her body.

  She walked across the cabin and dropped a kiss on Mr. Virdon’s forehead.

  “Hi’ya, honey. Feeling better this morning?”

  “I’ve still got a hell of a headache,” Mr. Virdon answered.

  “I told you not to mix them,” Kate said briskly.

  “Where would you like us to sit?” Chuck asked, his hand on Zaria’s arm.

  “Anywhere you fancy,” Edie Morgan answered. And then, as if he remembered that he was not the host, added, “what do you say, Corny?”

  It was the first time that Zaria had heard Mr. Virdon addressed by his Christian name and she thought that only someone as unpleasant as Edie Morgan could have shortened the rather attractive name of ‘Cornelius’ into anything so nauseating as ‘Corny’.

  “Whatever suits the others,” Mr. Virdon answered, holding his glass out to the Steward in a silent command for him to refill it.

  Drinks were being served all round before Victor Jacobetti appeared. He seated himself on Mr. Virdon’s left, which was the only seat left and said,