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again that he must have an accomplice
    in the hotel who made it his business to acquaint him with details
    about guests which he could use. And Mrs Brandon was obviously
    well-known at the Beauharnais. The very fact that Christina was
    travelling with her revealed that her destination was Archangel, and
    the man had simply been trying to give the crowd their money's worth
    by introducing a touch of drama into a very prosaic situation. It was
    so simple, when she worked it out. Why, then, couldn't she believe it?
    She wished that she had been given the trite prediction of wealth and
    a handsome husband that she had originally envisaged. It would have
    been something to smile over in the months to come.

    Instead, she was facing the journey ahead with a strange reluctance,
    unable to dismiss the murmurings of inner disquiet. It was not simply
    her discovery that Mrs Brandon's temper was all she had suspected,
    and worse—she could have lived with that—but rather all the
    unanswered questions she had pushed to the back of her mind in the
    relief of having a job offered to her and some kind of future to look
    forward to. Again, she found herself wondering why Mrs Brandon
    had come personally to England to seek her. Her health, after all, was
    not good—far from it. As well as her arthritis, she seemed to be
    taking a variety of tiny capsules for other purposes, and Christina
    could not help suspecting that she had a bad heart. If that was the
    case, then why had she not appointed some kind of agent rather than
    put herself to all the trouble of a journey half way across the world?
    She would have liked to tell herself that it was compassion and
    kindness that had prompted the action, but she knew that such a
    conclusion would merely be an exercise in self-deception.
    She was forced, instead, to conclude that Mrs Brandon had some
    urgent reason for wanting to look her future protegee over in person,
    although she could not even hazard a guess as to what that reason
    could be.
    But the feeling of elation that had gripped her on her arrival in
    Martinique was sadly lacking as she stood by the rail of the boat
    which was taking her to Archangel and caught her first glimpse of Ste
    Victoire. She was alone, Mrs. Brandon preferring to rest in one of the
    air-conditioned cabins, and so she had no one to influence her first
    reactions to the place that was to be her home.
    It was inevitably a nervous arrival. Christina's heart was frankly in
    her mouth as she saw how the boat had to edge its way past the
    crippling reef to get into the calm waters of the harbour, and she
    remembered uncomfortably how Mrs Brandon had warned her that
    they could be cut off in bad weather. It was June now, and she had

    read somewhere that summer was not the pleasantest season in this
    part of the Caribbean, with the possibility of hurricanes ever- present.
    She sighed impatiently. There was little point in thinking like this.
    She was just making herself miserable. She was letting an absurd
    prediction, uttered to impress a crowd of credulous tourists, prey on
    her mind too much. After all, she had suffered none of these qualms
    back in England, when she could have retracted if she had wanted to.
    And she hadalso discovered, on Martinique, that this smiling Paradise
    could have its darker side, yet it would be foolish to allow this to
    outweigh all the other considerations. This, after all, was where Aunt
    Grace had wanted her to be, and she owed it to her godmother at least
    to try and give this new life a chance.
    She lingered on deck as the boat docked, watching with fascination as
    the gangplank was run out and the freight and few passengers bound
    for the island began to be disembarked. An opulent car was drawn up
    on the quayside and a coloured man in a chauffeur's uniform was
    standing beside it, leaning against the bonnet. Christina knew without
    being told that this was the transport from Archangel, and she went
    below to inform Mrs