13 Power of the Sword by Wilbur Smith

Author:Wilbur Smith [Smith, Wilbur]
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Malcomess, Mrs I. Cabin A 16

Malcomess, Miss T. Cabin A 17

Malcomess, Miss M. Cabin A 17

Blaine’s family was sailing as planned. By agreement she had not seen him since the last day of the polo tournament, and surreptitiously she searched for him now through the smoking saloons and lounges of the liner’s first class section.

She could not find him and realized that he was probably in Isabella’s suite. The idea of their intimate seclusion galled her and she wanted desperately to go up to Cabin A 16 on the boat deck on the pretext of saying farewell to Isabella, but really to prevent Blaine being alone with her for another minute. Instead she sat in the main lounge and watched Mr Davenport demolishing pink gins, while she smiled and nodded at her acquaintances and exchanged banalities with those friends who paraded through the liner’s public cabins determined to see and be seen.

She noted with grim satisfaction the warmth and respect of the greetings and attentions showered upon her. It was clear that the wild extravagance of the polo tournament had served its purpose and allayed suspicions of her financial straits. As yet no rumours had been set free to ravage her position and reputation.

That would change soon, she realized, and the thought made her angry in advance. She deliberately snubbed one of the Cape’s most determined aspiring hostesses, publicly refusing her obsequious invitation and noting sardonically how the small cruelty increased the woman’s respect. But all the time that she was playing these complicated social games, Centaine was gazing over their heads, looking for Blaine.

The liner’s siren blared the final warning and the ship’s officers, resplendent in white tropical rig, passed amongst them with the polite instruction: ‘This vessel is sailing in fifteen minutes. Will all those who are not passengers kindly go ashore immediately.’

Centaine shook hands with Mr Davenport and joined the procession down the steep gangway to the dockside. There she lingered in the jovial press of visitors, staring up the liner’s tall side and trying to pick out Isabella or her daughters from the passengers who lined the rail of the boat deck.

Gaily coloured paper streamers fluttered in the south-easter as they were thrown down from the high decks and seized by eager hands on the quayside, joining the vessel to land with a myriad frail umbilical cords — and suddenly Centaine recognized Blaine’s eldest daughter. At this distance Tara was looking very grown-up and pretty in a dark dress and with her hair fashionably bobbed. Beside her, her sister had stuck her head through the railings and was furiously waving a pink handkerchief at someone on the dock below.

Centaine shaded her eyes and made out the figure in the wheelchair behind the two girls. Isabella was sitting with her face in shadow, and to Centaine she seemed suddenly to be the final harbinger of tragedy, an inimical force sent to plague her and deny her happiness.

‘Oh God, how I wish that she were easy to hate,’

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