But her thoughts at the moment were far from prosaic. Life was suddenly too golden, too full of promise for that. It had been real and earnest, and might be again, but now she was free to indulge herself in any fantasies that occurred to her. She could even, if she wished, change into one of the new bikinis in her case and go down to join the sunbathers round the pool, just as if Aunt Grace’s rather mousy little goddaughter who had never worn anything more daring than the regulation one-piece swimsuit on the school uniform list had never existed.
Perhaps she didn’t, she thought wonderingly. Perhaps all along that had merely been a façade for this strange, excited creature, enclosed in her iridescent bubble of exhilaration. The thought that all bubbles burst eventually, she crushed down with determination, lifting her face almost ecstatically to meet the sun.
One thing was certain. No matter what Mrs Brandon had said, she was not going to spend the rest of the day shut up in a stuffy hotel room. She had gathered from her employer that visits to Martinique were rare, and she was going to make the most of this one.
Half an hour later she was descending the wide stairs to the foyer. She had changed out of the trouser suit she had worn for the flight, and was wearing a brief scarlet cotton skirt, topped by a white shirt which tied in a bow at the front of her waist, leaving her midriff bare. She had experimented with her hair, tying it back with a ribbon, and piling it on top of her head, but had finally decided to leave it loose on her shoulders, even though, she thought with a grimace, it made her look younger than ever.
She had shopped for her new clothes in London, revelling in the choice offered by the boutiques and department stores. It was such fun for a change to be able to choose things because they were becoming, and not because they were classic styles which would ‘wear’. Mrs Brandon, to her surprise, had encouraged her to pick gay clothes and up-to-the-minute styles, but when Christina had mentioned that she was planning to visit the hotel beauty salon to have her hair cut and re-styled, her employer had issued an implacable veto.
Christina supposed rather ruefully that she could have insisted, but it did not seem worth making a fuss over such a relatively unimportant matter. Besides, Mrs Brandon’s attitude had taken her aback somewhat. She would have supposed that Mrs Brandon would prefer her new companion to look slightly older and more dignified without a mass of hair hanging round her face, but it proved, if Christina had needed convincing, that her employer was not a woman who could easily be summed up, or whose reactions to anything could be confidently predicted.
She had bought a small guide book at the reception desk, and decided to confine herself to an exploration of Fort de France. Time did not permit very much else, although she would have liked to have taken one of the guided tours to Mount Pelée, and the nearby city of St Pierre which the volcano had well-nigh destroyed over seventy years before.
But Fort de France had plenty to offer in the way of sightseeing. Christina was entranced by the houses with their wrought iron grillework, so redolent of bygone eras when Creole beauties wore high-waisted Empire line dresses, and cooled themselves with embroidered fans rather than air-conditioning. She toured the cathedral, and walked dreamily through the Savane, oblivious of the other tourists and their busy cameras.
The perfume shops on the Rue Victor Hugo lured her into parting with yet more of her direly depleted stock of money, and she could not resist buying a tiny doll in the traditional foulard costume of Martinique.
There seemed to be flowers everywhere. Bougainvillea and hibiscus spilled from balconies in a riot of colour, and street sellers pressed bunches of wild orchids and other exotic blooms on her as she walked along. But she refused them smilingly, using her schoolgirl French. It would be a shame to leave them behind to wither and die in the hotel, she thought, and she could not imagine that Mrs Brandon would happily accept the spectacle of her companion boarding the morning boat, weighed down by flowers.
She was beginning to feel hungry and would have liked to sample the reality behind some of the delectable odours that drifted from the restaurants she passed, but Mrs Brandon had made it clear that they would be dining at the hotel in their suite, so she regretfully turned her steps in the direction of the hotel. Or thought she did.
Somewhere along the line, the advice in her little guide book had been misleading, she thought vexedly. Or, more likely, she herself had simply taken a wrong turning. Certainly she had never seen this particular street before, and she should have found herself in the square in the front of the hotel.
Biting her lip, she swung round, staring back the way she had come. Don’t be a fool, she adjured herself briskly, fighting a feeling of slight panic. You’re not lost. You just think you are. One of the main streets will be just around the corner, and you’ll soon get your bearings again.
But the corner merely led to another street, narrower even and shabbier than the one she had just left. The shadows were lengthening now, and the tall houses with their crumbling stucco seemed to crowd in on her disconcertingly. A dog lying on its side in the shade lifted its head and snarled at her, and she crossed the street, her heart beating a little faster, to avoid it.
This is what happens, she scolded herself, trying to regain her confidence, when you overestimate your capabilities as a tourist. The fairy-tale had suddenly degenerated into a nightmare in this grimy and unprepossessing place, and like a child, she found herself wishing desperately for the fairy-tale again—for the silken thread that would lead her out of the labyrinth and to safety, back to the bright streets and the scent shops and the flowers.
Her footsteps slowed as she gazed uncertainly around her. Somewhere in one of the high shuttered houses, a child was crying, a long monotonous drift of sound that played uncomfortably on her tautened nerves. There were other footsteps now coming steadily and purposefully along the street behind her, and she gave a short relieved sigh. At last there was someone she could ask, and surely, even with her limited French, she could make herself understood and obtain directions back to the hotel.
But even as she turned, the halting words died on her lips. There were three of them, youths of her own age or even slightly younger. When she stopped, they did the same. They stood a few feet away from her, their hands resting lightly on their hips, silent, even smiling a little, and Christina knew she had never felt so frightened or so helpless in her life. For the first time since she had left the hotel, she was acutely conscious of the length of leg revealed by her skirt, and the expanse of bare flesh between her shirt and the waistband of the skirt.
It was a war of nerves that was being waged, she thought despairingly, as they stood facing each other, but she didn’t know what else to do. Something told her that to make a run for it would be fatal. Besides, where could she run to? They were cutting off one of her lines of retreat, and who knew what might lie at the end of the other.
She tried to drag the rags of her courage around her, lift her chin, bluff them into thinking she was unconcerned, but she knew by the widening grins on their dark faces that they were not deceived.
Someone had once told her that panic affected the throat muscles, making it impossible to scream, and she thought it must be true, because when the hand fell on her shoulder from behind her, the cry that welled up inside her found utterance only as a strangled gasp. The street dipped and swayed suddenly, and instinctively she closed her eyes. A man was speaking in patois, his voice resonant, slightly drawling even. The fingers that gripped her shoulder felt like a vice.
When she opened her eyes again, the street in front of her was empty and the silence seemed to surge at her. She turned almost incredulously to look at the man standing behind her. He was tall, his leanness accentuated by the lightweight tropical suit he wore. His hair was tawny, and there were lighter streaks