Devil At Archangel. Sara Craven

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      No matter how odd his manner, his directions were reassuringly accurate, she found a few minutes later as she emerged into the square and saw the opulent colonial lines of the Beauharnais confronting her. She quickened her steps, instinct telling her that Mrs Brandon’s rest would have ended long ago and that her absence would have been noticed.

      She crossed the trottoir quickly, swerving between the laughing, chattering groups of people making a more leisurely return to the hotel for dinner, followed by an evening’s entertainment. For a brief moment she felt envy stir within her. Her time here was so brief, and tomorrow she would set out for a very different existence on Ste Victoire, with no very clear idea what, if anything, she had to look forward to. She shook her head impatiently, tossing back her hair. She mustn’t think like that, she chided herself. It was the chance of a lifetime, and she was just allowing the afternoon’s experience to upset her unduly. After all, here she was back safe and sound, with only her pride bruised a little—and that was a condition she had learned to live with.

      As she approached the hotel’s imposing portico, she noticed that a group of tourists had gathered at one side of it, and were obviously watching something that was taking place in the shade of one of the tall columns which decorated the entrance.

      She hesitated for a moment, then deciding she might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb in the matter of lateness, threaded her way through the group to see what was interesting them all so closely. It didn’t at first glance seem to be too impressive. A tall, lanky Negro with grizzled hair was crouching on the ground, tossing what appeared to be chicken bones in front of him. In front of him, a matronly-looking woman with blue-rinsed hair was also crouching, oblivious of the damage the dusty ground was doing to an expensive suit. As Christina paused, she got to her feet, brushing her skirt almost absently, an expression of mingled alarm and delight on her plump good-natured face. She took the arm of a well-dressed man standing behind her and they moved away. As they passed her, Christina heard the woman say, ‘But that was truly amazing, honey. He knew everything …’ Oh, she thought, as comprehension dawned, a fortune-teller.

      Momentarily, she lingered, waiting to see who his next client would be from the laughing jostling little throng that surrounded him, but no one seemed very willing to step forward. The man waited, leaning his back against the column, his calm liquid eyes travelling speculatively round the group as if there was all the time in the world. He made no effort to tout for custom, Christina noticed curiously. With a feeling of anti-climax she began to back away and to her alarm felt someone grasp her arm.

      ‘Now then, little lady.’ A plump, bespectacled man in brightly coloured sports shirt and slacks beamed at her. ‘Why don’t you try your luck?’

      The people round him agreed enthusiastically and in spite of her protests, Christina found herself being pushed to the forefront of the crowd. She was blushing with annoyance and embarrassment. She wasn’t altogether averse to having her fortune told and she knew—of course she did—that it was all harmless fun, yet at the same time she was reluctant to take part in what amounted to a public performance. It must be her day for finding herself in situations that were none of her making, she told herself philosophically as she squatted obediently in front of the fortune-teller and added some coins to the battered tin at his side. She didn’t know what to do—whether or not to extend her palm for him to read, but in fact he seemed totally oblivious of her presence. All his attention seemed to be concentrated on the small pile of bones he was tossing in his hands. She waited rather uncomfortably, feeling that she was making a fool of herself for the second time that day, and that she did not want to be told that she would soon make a long journey and meet a dark stranger. That was the usual jargon, wasn’t it?

      The bones cascaded to the ground with heart-stopping suddenness and the man bent forward to examine them. There was a long silence, and Christina felt suddenly edgy. Oh, why couldn’t he do his spiel and get it over with? she wondered, visualising Mrs Brandon’s reaction if she were to emerge from the hotel and find her new companion sitting around in the dust, waiting to hear details of an imaginary future.

      ‘You must take care, m’m’selle.’ The man’s voice, suddenly hoarse and harsh, recaptured her wandering attention. ‘I see evil. You must beware—beware of the devil at Archangel.’

      Abruptly he rose to his feet, snatching up the bones and the tin cup, and walked off through the crowd, ignoring the disappointed protests that followed him. Christina got to her feet, smoothing her skirt, aware of the curious glances that were being directed at her. Her face flaming, she almost ran to the hotel entrance, the man’s words sounding like a warning drum beat in her head—‘Beware—beware of the devil at Archangel.’

      She still had not fully recovered her composure the next day when she set out on the last lap of her journey to Ste Victoire with Mrs Brandon. But, if she was honest, the fortune-teller was not wholly to blame for this. Mrs Brandon had indeed been angry to find that she had gone out—unaccountably so—and Christina had found herself wilting under the lash of her tongue. Nor had a halting attempt to describe her afternoon’s ordeal and its strange aftermath led to any softening of her employer’s attitude. Mrs Brandon did not hesitate to imply that Christina had asked for everything she had got and more, and when Christina had tried to tell her about the fortune-teller, she had been imperiously waved to silence.

      Dinner was an uncomfortable meal, with Mrs Brandon maintaining an icy reserve which boded ill for the future. It was not as if her anger had been roused by concern for Christina and the danger she had been in. It seemed simply to have been caused by the fact that her instructions had not been obeyed to the letter.

      Christina was thankful when she could at last withdraw to her own room. She felt unutterably weary, but perhaps predictably, sleep would not come. No amount of logical reasoning could dismiss the chill of the fortune-teller’s warning.

      She told herself over and over 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 protegée over in person, although she could not even hazard a guess as to what that reason could be.

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