Serpent in Paradise Read online

  'I've decided to leave here.'

  'Oh no!' In the moment of disappointment Teri realised how fond she had become of Emma Roland.

  'I'm going to the Cape. I want you to come too, Teri. You and Jill.'

  Green eyes were troubled. 'I don't think I can do that.'

  'I don't expect you just to pack up and leave here on the strength of a simple request. Let me fill you in, Teri.'

  Emma Roland picked up a photo album which had been lying on the table, in readiness for this moment, Teri realised. She turned a few pages, then handed the open album across to the girl with the words, 'Vins Doux.'

  'Vins Doux,' Teri repeated wonderingly, as she looked down at two photographs of a great white house set against a lushly green setting.

  'French for sweet wines,' she heard Emma say. 'A wine estate, Teri.'

  'That's where you're going?'

  'Yes.'

  'It's beautiful.'

  'The photos don't do it justice. The reality is even lovelier. Well, Teri, what do you think?'

  'You're going there on a holiday?'

  'To live. Vins Doux is my home.'

  Teri looked again at the house with its gracious Cape Dutch architecture and its spectacular setting, and wondered why anyone with such a home would willingly have chosen to live in one of Johannesburg's drearier suburbs. Willingly? Perhaps Mrs Roland had been forced to leave Vins Doux. Perhaps it was many years since she had lived there at all. For the first time it occurred to Teri that she knew very little about the woman who had become her friend.

  'I think you'd be happy at Vins Doux.'

  'It's not that simple. This is my home. I can't just leave it.'

  'It hasn't been much of a home since your parents died,' Emma said gently.

  Teri met her gaze steadily. 'I'm trying to make it one.'

  'You have great courage, I know. You'd love the Cape, Teri.'

  'I'm sure I would. But you haven't told me why you want me to come with you.'

  'I want a companion.'

  A quick glance at the foot that had twisted on a slick of oil in the supermarket. Was it giving its owner even more trouble than Teri had realised?

  'I don't have any nursing experience,' she said tentatively.

  'You don't need any. I've been very lonely since my husband died. There are times when I feel low, when I really need a friend. I've grown very fond of you both, you and Jill. Come to Vins Doux with me; you'll have a home and I'll have company.'

  'I don't know…'

  'Jill would love it. We're close to the sea, she'd have a marvellous time.'

  Green eyes sparkled. 'You're twisting my arm!'

  'Ah, that's good. You haven't breathed till you've breathed the Cape air, Teri. Jill would thrive on it.'

  'Wretched woman!' Teri gave a little laugh. 'I didn't know you could be so beguiling.'

  She got to her feet and went to the window. Below her the view was one of concrete buildings and busy traffic. A Highveld wind whipped around a corner, stirring up dust and old newspapers. Some of South Africa's loveliest suburbs were in this city, gardens where flowers and shrubs grew in colourful profusion, but this was not one of them. The view from her own fiat was no different.

  In the year that had passed since the death of their parents she had tried very hard to create a new life for Jill and herself. Their father's once-thriving business had fallen on hard times, and when all the creditors had been appeased there had been little money left. Teri had tried to make a new home, yet in a sense Emma Roland was right. It was nothing like the home they had once had. What the flat lacked most of all perhaps was a sense of belonging, of roots.

  'Do you feel you would be giving up too much?' she heard Mrs Roland ask.

  'My friends. My job.'

  Louise was a dear friend. Andy too, despite the fact that she did not reciprocate the feelings he felt for her. Her job was one she enjoyed. She had worked hard to become a librarian, working with books meant very much to her.

  'Give yourself time to think,' Emma said. 'I don't need an answer today.'

  Wise lady. Shrewd too. She must know that her offer was tempting. A breathing-space in which she need not worry about rent and food, a chance to let Jill enjoy sea-air and a garden. A wonderful chance—the kind of chance that comes along only once.

  She turned from the window. 'I'll come with you.'

  'Oh, Teri, I'm so glad!' Emma beamed.

  'I'll need some time, though. For one thing, I can't just walk out of my job.'

  'I have things to settle here too. A month, Teri?'

  'Perfect.' Leaving the window, she came over to Emma and gave her a hug. 'You're a darling for asking me.'

  She picked up the open album, and looked again at the photos. Incredible to think that this beautiful house would soon be her home. Suddenly she was very excited.

  It was only when she stood up to go that a thought came to her and she turned to her friend. 'Last time I was here I met a man, a Mr Garfield. Forgive me, Mrs Roland, but does he have something to do with your decision?'

  Emma smiled. 'It was my decision to go to Vins Doux. It's time to go back.'

  'Buy yourself some nice clothes.'

  Disbelievingly Teri took in the amount on the cheque Emma had just handed her. Eyes wide, she looked up. 'I can't take this!'

  'And some clothes for Jill.'

  'I can't do this…'

  Emma was smiling. 'And if that's not enough, tell me, and I'll write out another cheque.'

  Teri shook her head. 'I have clothes.'

  'You take very good care of the things you have, but I think it's been a long while since you had anything new.'

  'You're ashamed of me,' Teri said in a low voice.

  'No, my dear, I could never be that. But you deserve a new wardrobe, and you'll feel much happier at Vins Doux if you have one.'

  Not for the first time in the three days since Teri had agreed to be Mrs Roland's companion did she wonder what she was going to.

  'It's a lot of money,' she said now.

  'No more than I can afford. Go on a shopping spree, Teri, and enjoy it.'

  It seemed there was no end to the surprises her friend was beginning to spring on her. Judging by the way she lived and dressed, Teri had taken Emma Roland to be a woman of modest means. That a wine estate in the Cape was her home had been astonishing news. The cheque was generosity she had never expected.

  Enjoy a shopping spree, Emma had commanded, and once Teri had become used to the idea that the money was hers to spend, she did just that. She possessed an eye for fashion and colour which she had never been able to indulge in before now. It was bliss to walk into shops whose windows she had previously only gazed at. Fun to try on garments, to plan and coordinate. Fun to buy. It was a joy to fit Jill out with new clothes.

  'I feel like Cinderella,' she laughed, when she showed her purchases to Mrs Roland.

  'With a difference,' said that woman. 'When the clock strikes midnight your clothes won't turn to rags.'

  It was all like a dream. 'I keep wondering when I will wake out of it,' Teri said to Louise and Andy.

  'It's a dream I could bear to live with,' Louise laughed, but Andy put in sadly, 'I have a feeling we'll never see you again.'

  'Nonsense,' Teri protested fiercely. 'Mrs Roland needs a companion for a while. It isn't a permanent arrangement. She won't want me for ever.'

  She had not known that time could pass so quickly. As the Boeing left the ground on its way to the Cape it was hard to believe that a month had actually passed since the day when she had first seen the photos of Vins Doux. Teri tried to answer Jill's questions—the little girl was enraptured by the plane—and she knew that her own excitement matched her sister's.

  They landed in Cape Town to yet another surprise. Waiting to meet them was a man in immaculate uniform who spoke deferentially to Mrs Roland, calling her 'madam', and who led them to a sparkling Rolls-Royce in the parking-ground. The man's name was Johan, and it seemed he was emp
loyed as a chauffeur at Vins Doux. Teri was awed by his haughty demeanour, but Emma was her usual self, friendly and unaffected. Yet as if she had been speaking to chauffeurs and riding in Rolls-Royces all her life, Teri realised. That, perhaps, was the biggest surprise of all.

  She was all at once very glad of the clothes she had bought. She knew now that she would need them.

  A slight nervousness at the thought of the place she was coming to faded as the car left the airport. She had known that the Cape Peninsula would be beautiful, but the loveliness that she saw on all sides was more breathtaking than anything she had expected.

  There was the grandeur of Table Mountain, its flat top suitably bedecked in its tablecloth of white cloud, and the summits called Lion's Head and Devil's Peak flanking it on either side.

  'It's every postcard I've ever seen,' Teri said, awed, and Emma laughed.

  And then they had left Table Mountain behind them and there were other mountains. They rose on one side of the road, their slopes wooded and sweet-smelling. On the other side the land fell away steeply to an ocean that was a deep prussian blue with a white line of foam where the waves hurled themselves with wild abandon on to the rocks.

  Mrs Roland sat in front with Johan. They were talking, but Teri did not take in a word that was said. She wound down the window, and then she put Jill on her lap and showed her the ocean and the waves, and, most exciting of all, a fishing trawler making its way back to port. The air that wafted in through the window was a potent composite of mountain shrubs and ocean saltiness. Teri drew in long breaths of it, and as she looked at the pale cheeks of her small sister she thought that Jill could not fail to get strong here.

  The car took the road with purring smoothness, but Teri registered its luxuriousness only abstractedly. She was far too busy pointing things out to Jill—the wild flowers that dotted the scrub, a lagoon, a deserted stretch of beach, another boat, a very big one this time, on its way to distant shores.

  And then they were turning inland, and the scenery changed. 'Wine country,' said Emma, turning in her seat with a smile.

  'Is it far to Vins Doux?'

  'We're nearly there.'

  Wine country indeed. They drove through lush green valleys, and wherever the eye could see there were vineyards. Teri gazed out of the window entranced.

  'Stop the car, please, Johan,' Emma ordered as they rounded a bend. The Rolls slid to a noiseless halt and she turned once more and said simply, 'The homestead.'

  Teri gasped on an indrawn breath of wonder, and knew she would always remember her first view of Vins Doux. Impressive as the photos had been, they had not prepared her for the sheer beauty and grandeur that was Vins Doux. She had never seen a house quite like the one that was set against the shimmering mountains. The walls were white, a pristine white that might have jarred on the eye had it not been relieved by the brown slatted shutters around the windows, and the shrubs that grew everywhere. The most striking feature was a gable, exquisitely curved. From her work in the library Teri knew enough about Cape Dutch architecture to recognise that this house had been designed by a master.

  'It's the most beautiful house I've seen,' she said at last.

  'It is beautiful, thank you.'

  As the car moved on, Mrs Roland turned her head forward once more, but not before Teri glimpsed the look of sadness in her eyes. What did Vins Doux mean to her? If the wine estate was indeed her home, how could she have endured to leave it? And what had prompted her return?

  CHAPTER TWO

  Questions bubbled on Teri's lips, but it was more than the chauffeur's rigid back which deterred her from giving them voice. Emma Roland was a woman of mystery. There must be a reason why she had chosen to live in a small Johannesburg flat, content with just a few friends and the simplest of clothes. The suit she wore now was simple too, but it was well cut and expensive, and for the first time since Teri had known her, her hair had been styled by a good hairdresser. Her image today was one of unaffected elegance. It was an image that was new to Teri.

  If the air of mystery was new, the aura of privacy was not. From the beginning Teri had known Emma Roland to be a private person; warm and friendly, her face radiating kindness even when it was in repose, yet private nevertheless. Teri remembered no shared confidences, no tales of the past.

  It was a privacy that she knew she must respect. Emma would speak when she was ready to.

  They drew up before the house and the chauffeur walked around the car to open the door for Emma Roland, then for Teri. 'Thank you, Johan,' Emma said, and then, 'Come, my dears, I think we are expected.'

  An understatement. No sooner had they reached the foot of the wide steps leading up to the house than the big wooden door opened and the staff poured out. Wide smiles showed evident happiness at Emma Roland's return. She greeted each one in turn, pausing to ask after their families. One woman received a warm hug. 'Esther, our housekeeper here for more than twenty years,' Emma explained to Teri, before introducing the two newcomers. 'This is Miss Malloy, and the pretty little girl is Jill. Teri, my dear, I think we'll go inside now.'

  A few paces took them into a hall that was spacious and gleaming, with a floor of polished oak and panelled walls, and a lovely antique chest in one corner. On the chest was a Chinese vase filled with roses from the garden. Teri would have liked to look around her, in particular to see the living room that led off from the hall, and which she could just glimpse a small part of through the open door, but Emma seemed in no mood to linger.

  Holding Jill by the hand, Teri followed her friend into a carpeted corridor. 'This way takes us to the bedroom wing,' said Emma, and as she turned Teri saw that her face was suddenly very tired.

  'You should rest,' she suggested with quick concern.

  'I'll do just that.' Emma smiled down at Jill. 'This little mite is nearly asleep on her feet. Why don't you put her down and then do some exploring on your own.'

  The very thing that Teri had in mind.

  With delight she took in the two adjoining rooms that would be Jill's and her own. The walls were a pale primrose, and the colour was repeated in the curtains and bedspreads and the soft thick carpet which also contained splashes of jade. As in the entrance hall, the furniture was antique, lovely pieces, not very different from some that Teri had seen featured in books on Cape Dutch furniture. She would enjoy studying them, she knew, but not now.

  'Bed for you,' she told Jill, and the little girl, sleepy eyes widening with amazement, pointed to a big four poster and echoed, 'Bed?'

  In no time Jill was asleep. Teri stood and watched her a few minutes. Long lashes cast dusty shadows on a face that was far too pale. It would take time for Jill to build up her strength, but do so she would. Teri thought of the lovely garden she had glimpsed on her way into the house, of lonely inlets and sunny beaches, and she knew that she had been right to accept Mrs Roland's invitation.

  It did not take long to unpack, and she was relieved to find the new clothes had travelled well. Here and there were a few creases, but she could iron them out later. Now, with the sweet-smelling air seducing her through the open window, she wanted only to be out of doors.

  Her inclination was to pull on a pair of fading jeans and a shirt which she had owned before, and in which she felt most comfortable, but just half an hour at Vins Doux had made her realise that something else would be expected of Mrs Roland's companion. She stood before the open wardrobe, and her sense of wonder was akin to the emotions she had experienced when she had made her purchases. So many pretty clothes, and all of them belonging to Jill and herself. She had a faint inkling of how Cinderella must have felt before the bells had chimed midnight.

  After a shower in a bathroom that was as tasteful as the bedrooms, she chose a flared skirt of powder blue, teaming it with a matching shirt in a lovely soft silk. She ran a brush through honey-coloured hair and applied just a little make-up to a face that glowed with excitement so that it needed no artificial enhancement. Then she went into the interleading
room where Jill lay sleeping, one arm around her beloved teddy-bear. The little girl's breathing was slow- and regular; she would sleep for some time and it was safe to leave her.

  It was very hot in the garden, and the air was heavy with the scent of roses and the drone of bees. Near the path was a water-sprinkler, the drops falling on the concrete, and Teri lingered a few moments to enjoy the coolness of the spray on her hot cheeks. She walked on, turning now and then to look at the house. The path twisted and turned, and from every aspect the house looked slightly different, but always it was perfection. Teri wondered anew how Emma Roland could have left it.

  The path began to slope upwards. At the top of a rise Teri stopped and sucked in her breath. She was just yards from the vineyards. Sloping away, almost from the point where she stood, they stretched before her, to all sides of her. Waves of green and purple rolled and rippled in the breeze, a vista that ended only where it reached the blue-shadowed mountains. Teri thought she had never seen anything quite so beautiful.

  She began to walk once more, a spring in her step. She would come here with Jill. She would lift her little sister in her arms so that she could touch the grapes that hung in swollen bunches from the vines. When Emma's foot was quite recovered they would all come here together.

  At a little clearing she stopped. The grass was cut short here, and a smooth rock was invitingly shaped to support a weary back. Not that she was weary, just pleasantly drowsy after all the excitement. She sat down on the ground and leaned back, and looked at the mountains. Her eyes felt heavy, and she thought she would close them just for a moment, no longer than that, for soon it would be time to go back and there was still so much that she wanted to see.

  She did not know that she had fallen asleep until a hand touched her arm and a voice said, 'There are snakes here.'

  She woke instantly, but she kept her eyes closed. The words were shocking enough. But the voice—she had heard that voice in her dreams! Slowly, very slowly, she let her lashes rise and she looked up.