Читать книгу Lovers In Paradise - Barbara Cartland - Страница 3

Roxana was feeling nervous.

She hoped that she showed no sign of it, but she was well aware that this newcomer might make trouble.

There had been a lot of trouble already caused by the women of the Dutch community who had said categorically that since her uncle was dead she should not be allowed to stay in Bali.

Roxana knew that they were not concerned so much with her position as a young woman as that they were jealous.

It would be impossible for the fat and unattractive mevrouws whose complexions had deteriorated in the sun and whose heavy eating had put many surplus pounds on their figures not to resent the way she looked.

They watched her suspiciously and they also made it clear, as they had from the time of her arrival in Bali, that they did not consider a Missionary or his relatives to be of any social consequence.

Roxana often thought with some amusement how easily she could change their attitude by telling them who were her relatives in England and giving them the names of her father and mother.

But it would be far more dangerous for them to be interested in her and she preferred their ostracism to their patronage.

Sometimes she thought frantically that she was fighting a lone battle against an enemy that encroached on her from every side.

Then, because she had a sense of humour, she laughed at her own fears and told herself that in reality there was nothing to frighten her.

That was until the Governor had become a more insidious and frightening enemy than the Dutch people he ruled over.

When her uncle by marriage decided to visit Bali as a Missionary and agreed to take her with him, it had seemed an adventure so intriguing and so exciting that, while Roxana had said a prayer of gratitude every day until the actually sailed, she also held her breath!

She had been so afraid that something would prevent them from setting off at the last moment for the East, which was to her like an El Dorado that she imagined would always be out of her reach.

But just as soon as she arrived in Holland after her father’s death to stay with her Aunt Agnes, she had realised that her uncle, Pieter Helderik, was restless and at loggerheads with the small community where they lived.

He was a brilliantly intelligent but over-sensitive man who lived on his nerves. It made him find the daily round of parochial work dull and uninspiring.

He preached with a fire that would have galvanised anyone but the stolid Dutch burghers into a flame of enthusiasm that would have equalled his own.

Instead they sat solidly in their pews with an expression on their faces that Roxana knew was one of disapproval.

They thought that Pieter Helderik was far too theatrical and too dramatic and they did not wish to feel anything about the God they worshipped except that He was there to supply their needs and be a comforting background in their uneventful lives.

“How can I move them?” Pieter Helderik asserted once in despair to his niece.

“I think only dynamite could do that, Uncle Pieter,” Roxana had replied.

He had laughed a little ruefully.

“I try, Heaven knows I try, to enthuse the spirit of God into them, but it is rather like thumping a goose feather mattress and I am well aware that I make no impression.”

He besieged the authorities until he eventually made the Dutch change their minds about excluding Missionaries from Bali.

He had been supported by the Roman Catholics and he had also aroused public opinion on the iniquities of leaving a conquered country without the solace and privilege of hearing the Christian message.

Reluctantly and with a scepticism that they did not attempt to disguise, the authorities finally conceded that temporary permits only should be accorded to a few specially chosen Missionaries.

These would be reviewed year by year and very stringent conditions were laid on those they were granted to.

Sometimes Roxana was certain that she would not be allowed to accompany her uncle and aunt on their voyage.

She fancied that the Dutch authorities, bored with Pieter Helderik’s unceasing petitions, were actually glad to rid themselves of someone they considered an intolerable nuisance.

Whatever the reason the Helderiks and Roxana had finally set sail from Holland on a small and extremely uncomfortable Steamer, but so glad to be on their way that for them it might have been the Santa Maria setting out with Christopher Columbus to discover a new Continent.

It was only her Aunt Agnes, Roxana thought later, who seemed to be unexcited at the prospects of travelling to a new country and leaving everything that was familiar behind.

She was a quiet sweet-tempered woman who adored her husband and would in fact have followed him down into Hell if he had demanded it of her.

Roxana, however, believed that he was taking them to Paradise.

She knew from her research about Bali that it was called ‘The Island of Paradise’, ‘The Enchanted Isle’ and ‘The Island of the Gods’.

The more she read and the more she learned about Bali, the more excited she grew at the thought of actually seeing all the beauty that had stirred her imagination, but which she had always doubted if she would ever see with her own eyes.

It was only when they were passing through the Red Sea and her Aunt Agnes seemed to suffer from the heat that Roxana learned her secret.

After being married for fifteen years to Pieter Helderik she was unexpectedly and almost incredibly having a child!

“We prayed so fervently that we might be blessed,” Agnes Helderik said to her niece, “but we had both given up hope.”

“Why did you not tell us before we left, Aunt Agnes?”

Her aunt had smiled.

“If I had done so, Pieter would have postponed our departure and they might well have cancelled his permit.”

“Why should they do that?”

“The Dutch made it dear that they would not allow Missionaries with young children to go to Bali. They did not consider it safe.”

“Aunt Agnes!” Roxana exclaimed in consternation. “What will they say now?”

Her aunt smiled.

“Perhaps we can keep them from finding out.”

This was something Roxana had never envisaged and she foresaw from the very moment her aunt told her the truth that there were a great many difficulties ahead of them.

First and most important was to keep Pieter Helderik himself from realising what was happening until they had actually landed on the Island.

This was not difficult! He was in an ecstatic state of excitement about his new life and he would, Roxana thought with a smile, not have noticed if she and his wife had turned black in the night.

All he could think about, and it filled every waking hour of his day, was the work he had dedicated himself to do amongst the people of Bali.

He had already, Roxana discovered, a wide knowledge of the Balinese and their customs.

He would sit on deck, whatever the weather was like, poring over one of the books he had brought with him, making notes and then instructing his wife and his niece on dozens, if not hundreds, of things they must do or not do to avoid causing offence to the people among whom they were now to live.

“My head is whirling with so many different taboos and restrictions,” Roxana said to her aunt.

“One of our friends in Holland told us it was ‘a land of taboos’,” Mrs. Helderik replied, “but I expect they exaggerated as people always do and we shall find once we reach there it is very like any other place and no more difficult.”

She spoke a little wearily as if she was finding it hard to echo her husband’s enthusiasm and not to let him realise that she often felt ill and was at all times very lethargic.

Roxana helped her and it was only after they had reached Bali and had settled down in the village where they were to live that Pieter Helderik learnt the truth.

He was then torn in two by elation that after so many prayers he was to have a child and his terror that because of it he might be sent back to Holland.

It was Geertruida, Mrs. Helderik’s maid, who had been with her all her married life and treated her Mistress as if she was a child who needed her care, who solved everything.

“You can leave everything to me, Juffrouw,” she said to Roxana. “I have delivered many babies in the village where I was born. My mother was the midwife and when she could not attend an expectant mother I went in her place.”

“But after the child is born?” Roxana questioned.

Geertruida smiled.

“There are children everywhere,” she said. “Who would notice one more?”

That was certainly true.

Roxana had never seen so many children or such attractive ones, but she could not help feeling that amongst the Balinese children with their honey-gold skins, a fair-haired Dutch child, if he resembled his father, would stand out like a sore thumb.

But, when Karel was born, she found him so entrancing and so attractive that she knew she would fight for him if it took every ounce of her strength and will!

That she discovered was exactly what she had to do.

Geertruida delivered Karel secretly and apparently efficiently, although she confessed that it was a difficult birth and depleted Agnes Helderik of her strength.

It was, however, Roxana thought, worth all the suffering in the world for that exquisite moment when her aunt gave her son into her husband’s arms.

There was something so reverent and so rapturous in his face that it was as if he knew himself blessed above all mortals and the wonder of his gift from God was beyond words.

As Roxana had gone from the room leaving the husband and wife and their new-born child together, she felt for a moment as if she had been present at the Nativity and half-expected to see the Star of Bethlehem shining in the sky above them.

But their happiness was short-lived.

Mrs. Helderik developed a tropical fever for which Geertruida had no cure and she grew weaker day by day.

Even so Roxana was not really alarmed until one morning she learnt that her aunt had died quietly in the night while they had all been asleep.

There was a smile on her lips and she could not have suffered.

She had in fact slipped away and left Geertruida and Roxana with the month-old Karel on their hands and a husband who was completely broken-hearted.

What made things so difficult was that, while the funeral took place and quite a number of people came to express their condolences, Karel had to be hidden away.

It was not for some months that Roxana realised that in dying her aunt had left a void in the life of her husband that could never be filled.

Because she was so quiet, so gentle and unassuming it had been easy for Roxana, like many other people they knew, to consider Agnes Helderik of little account and certainly of no consequence.

When, against her father’s wishes, she married the man she loved and adored him in a manner that made her completely subservient to his every wish, Agnes had cut herself off completely from the life that she had lived as a girl in England.

She was the daughter of a landowner with a considerable estate, who was well respected in his own County and had a great number of friends in London and her father had expected that both his daughters would make advantageous marriages.

Roxana’s mother had certainly done so in marrying Lord Barclay who, although much older than his wife, was an important figure in the Social world.

That Agnes should have preferred a penniless Dutch Missionary was beyond her father’s comprehension and that of her relatives.

“God knows where she met the man!” her father had expostulated over and over again.

But they had met and fallen in love in a way, Roxana was to learn later, that made it impossible for either of them to be aware that there was anyone else in the whole world.

Agnes had run away with her Dutch Missionary and even her elder sister had thought it regrettable and decided that in future, as they had nothing in common, there would be little point in keeping in close touch with each other.

Only as she grew up had Roxana become intrigued with the idea of her aunt living in Holland, cut off from the world she had known as a girl, but apparently with no regrets.

The family heard from Agnes Helderik at Christmas and on their birthdays, but Roxana suspected that, while her aunt wrote to her sister, her mother was usually too indifferent or too lazy to reply.

When Roxana realised that she must leave her home and go off somewhere, anywhere, to get away from the unfortunate atmosphere that she found it impossible to live in, she had thought of her aunt.

Only one year after Lord Barclay’s death Roxana’s mother had decided to marry again.

It was understandable that she should wish to do so.

At forty she was still a very attractive woman and she had spent the last six years of her life nursing a senile old man who seldom opened his mouth except to complain.

Fortunately they were rich enough to be able to afford nurses, but even so their whole way of life had been restricted and in a way unpleasant.

The moment one entered the front door it was impossible not to be aware that its owner was dying and taking ‘an unconscionable time’ about it.

Roxana had been extremely sorry for her mother. At the same time she found it hard not to be shocked that her mother welcomed flirtatiously any man who was prepared to pay her court.

When finally she told her daughter that she was to marry again, Roxana had waited for the blow to fall and had known even before her mother said who her future husband was to be that it meant she must go away.

“Not Patrick Grenton, Mama!” she had exclaimed involuntarily.

“Why not?” Lady Barclay asked coldly. “You know just as well as I do that he has been devoted to me for a long time and I am sure that we shall be very happy together.”

With difficulty Roxana bit back the protest that came to her lips.

How could she explain to her mother that, while Patrick Grenton had been calling on Lady Barclay and flattering her with his attentions, he had also been pursuing her daughter?

She had disliked Patrick Grenton from the first moment she had seen him.

A hard-riding, hard-drinking country Squire, he had followed her out hunting, keeping away other men who would wish to ride by her side.

In the summer he always managed to turn up unexpectedly in the woods or anywhere else when she happened to be walking or riding alone.

It was some time before she became aware that Patrick Grenton was playing a double game.

Then the manner in which her mother welcomed him to the house when he called, the trouble she took over her appearance and the coy way she spoke to him revealed the truth.

It was not difficult for Roxana to realise that, while she attracted Patrick Grenton as a woman, the wealthy Lady Barclay was more alluring as a wife.

The mere idea that he could be so two-faced made Roxana feel sick.

Patrick was five years younger than her mother, but that did not count beside the fact that he was well known to be always hard up.

Once they were married her mother would be able to provide him with the new hunters he needed and all the comforts which, owing to the raffish way he lived, he was unable to afford.

‘I must get away!’ Roxana told herself. ‘I just cannot live in the house with Mama and Patrick Grenton!’

The idea of his being her stepfather was bad enough but she still had the uncomfortable feeling that, even when he was married to her mother, he would still seek her out and still pursue her as he had done before.

It was, however, difficult to know where she could go.

She had many friends, but then she could hardly stay with any of them indefinitely. And she did not wish to make her mother feel uncomfortable by deliberately asking her cousins or her father’s relatives if she could make her home with them.

It seemed like an inspiration when the idea came to her that she should contact her aunt in Holland.

After all everyone would understand that she should wish to go away when her mother married and what more plausible explanation could she give than that she had been invited to stay with her mother’s sister?

Without mentioning this idea to anybody, Roxana had sat down and written to Agnes Helderik, asking her if she could come to Holland and saying how she longed to make her acquaintance.

The letter that had come in response had been enthusiastically welcoming and, although her mother had been astonished, Roxana had left England as soon as the very quiet Wedding between Lady Barclay and Patrick Grenton had taken place.

Patrick Grenton had objected more strongly than his wife.

“Why on earth do you want to go away?” he had asked angrily when he had learned of Roxana’s plans. “I want you here! I want to see you and talk to you.”

“I have no wish to play gooseberry to you and Mama,” Roxana had answered him.

He had looked at her and she disliked the expression in his eyes.

“You know it is not like that,” he said.

“I know what it is like and I don’t wish to discuss it,” Roxana replied coldly.

“Suppose I refuse to let you go?”

“You cannot prevent me.”

“Are you sure about that? After all as your stepfather I am also your Guardian.”

“I have every intention of leaving this house as soon as you and Mama are married and I advise you not to make a fuss!”

Roxana spoke in a manner which brought more anger into his eyes and his lips tightened.

“If that is to be your attitude about the future,” he insisted, “then sooner or later I will make you regret it.”

She did not bother to answer him. She only looked at him with contempt, but when she left the room she had heard him swearing in a manner that made her shiver.

However she found her aunt, Roxana was determined to like her and stay with her for as long as possible. Holland was at least a refuge from Patrick Grenton.

Actually she had loved Mrs. Helderik from the first moment she met her and her aunt had loved her.

She was, Roxana thought, exactly what she would have wished her mother to be like but Lady Barclay had grown hard during the frustrating years of her late husband’s incurable illness.

Lady Barclay had at first, despite the disparity in their ages, been very happy.

Lord Barclay had been an extremely intelligent man who had given distinguished service to the Crown and was greatly respected in Political circles.

But when he became ill he was like an oak that had been struck by lightning.

If only he could have died after the first ten years of marriage, it would have been easy for everyone to mourn him in genuine sorrow.

Instead he had lingered on and, through no real fault of his own, had gradually lost his friends and the love of his wife and daughter.

It had been wrong, Roxana knew, to be glad when someone died and yet ,when wearing the deepest black, she had followed her father’s coffin to the graveside, she had known that the trappings were only a farce.

It was a relief that after so long he was freed of his tortured body, but Roxana had cried at her aunt’s death as she had never been able to do for her father.

It seemed so cruel and so unnecessary that, when she was so ecstatically happy at having given her husband the son he had longed for after so many years, Agnes Helderik had died.

If Roxana was unhappy, it was nothing compared to the overwhelming grief suffered by Pieter Helderik.

He had not only adored his wife with his whole heart and soul but she was also a part of him, completely necessary both to his mind and body.

He was like a rudderless ship and it was true, Roxana thought, to say that the light had gone out of his life.

He had flung himself into his work in Bali with no less enthusiasm and a one-pointed concentration that was so characteristic of his personality but then from the day Agnes died something was missing.

Before her death everything he had said and done had been spontaneous and seemed to come almost as if it was an inspiration from above. Now he drove himself hard and at times Roxana even thought that he was pretending to feel what was not actually there.

She could not put her finger on exactly what was wrong and yet she knew that her aunt, from the moment she died, had taken with her something that was indispensable to Pieter Helderik.

Soon after coming to Bali Roxana had seen and understood clearly why the Dutch had been reluctant to issue even temporary permits to Missionaries.

She had known without anyone telling her that the intransigence of the inhabitants in religious matters doomed all the Missionaries’ efforts to failure.

All she had read about Bali and all she saw from her own observations made her realise that the Priests, the pedandas, would not tolerate it that any member of their race should go over to a new religion.

When there were Christian converts, although they were very few, they were boycotted and usually hunted out of the community.

Balinese doctors refused to treat Christians and they were threatened that if they died they would not be allowed to be buried in Balinese cemeteries.

She tried tactfully to tell Pieter Helderik what was happening but he would not listen and pretended that he did not believe her. But it was obvious that he was shunned when he moved about the villages.

The Balinese, usually a smiling easy-going people, vanished into their thatched houses when he appeared or deliberately moved away when he attempted to speak to them.

It was only the children who were not afraid and so were not concerned with anything except that he would give them sweetmeats and occasionally buy them toys.

‘It is hopeless! Quite hopeless!’ Roxana told herself over and over again.

But she dare not say it out loud for fear of hurting her uncle more than he had been hurt already.

She knew that he was aware of what was happening as the lines on his face sharpened and he grew thinner and thinner until the clothes he had brought with him from Holland hung on him as if he was a scarecrow.

He found it hard to eat even the delicious dishes that Geertruida prepared and which had been his favourites at home.