Elianne by Judy Nunn

They’d remained frozen where they stood, barely able to believe their eyes. Now galvanised into action, they begged James to stop.
    ‘No more, James, no more, I beseech you,’ André pleaded, desperate and terrified. ‘
Non, non, oh mon Dieu
. No more. No more, I beg you.’
    ‘Stop it,’ Elianne called out. ‘Leave the man be, Jim, leave him be.’
    It was the sound of her voice that brought Big Jim to a halt. He hadn’t known she was still in the room.
    He released his grip, but as the Frenchman once again started to slide down the doorframe, he held him up by his neck scarf like a rag doll, and Yves, already gasping for breath, was forced to remain on his feet or risk being choked to death.
    James leant his face close to the Frenchman’s. ‘Do you want to live?’ he asked quietly.
    Hauling the air back into his lungs, his shattered jaw a bloody mess, Yves was unable to talk. He nodded.
    ‘Then I shall tell you what you will do. André will drive you and your friend back to the outskirts of town where he will leave you both. You will then have the option of inventing some accident that befell your friend or, if you prefer, you can simply leave him to be discovered tomorrow morning. The choice is yours.’ James knew only too well the choice the Frenchman would make. Yves would have no wish to be embroiled with the law. He would leave his dead friend on the roadside. There was no honour among men such as these. ‘Are you happy with that arrangement?’
    Yves nodded.
    James released his hold on the man’s neckerchief. ‘André, fetch a horse and dray,’ he ordered. ‘Ellie, go to your room.’
    Both obeyed instantly.
    The following morning, no mention was made of the incident. It was as if it had never happened.
    Elianne’s eighteenth birthday came and went with little fanfare, for the main celebratory event was to take place two days later, when she and James Durham were to be wed by the Reverend Pidd.
    The Reverend Pidd had had a long-time connection with the Desmarais family, particularly Elianne’s mother. A staunch follower of the Scottish missionary, John Gibson Paton, Raymond Pidd had been a regular visitor to the plantation during Beatrice’s time, no doubt believing his presence served some significant religious purpose, although Elianne rather doubted that it did. She strongly suspected Beatrice encouraged the Reverend’s visits as a welcome excuse to socialise at close quarters with a fellow countryman, the majority of her husband’s friends being French.
    The marriage took place in the garden, the ceremony conducted beneath the arbour while the twenty or so guests congregated about the small central fountain – an intimate affair, as planned, in a picturesque setting.
    Elianne looked out at the gathering, pleased to see the faces she knew, and most particularly pleased by the mixture of brown and white. None of her father’s riff-raff gambling companions were present and alongside the several English and French expatriates, businessmen and their wives whom she and her mother had befriended over the years were a number of islanders and their children. These included the house servants, with whom Elianne was extremely close, several of the senior workers whom she considered her friends, and of course Pavi Salet and his family.
    André had raised no objection when his daughter had expressed a wish that her islander friends should be present. He hadn’t dared, for Elianne had had James’s support.
    ‘Whatever you wish, my love,’ James had said. ‘A wedding day belongs to the bride. Do you not agree, André?’
    ‘Yes, yes, indeed I do.’ André would have agreed to anything James Durham said. The man put the fear of God into him.
    André Desmarais was still haunted by that night. He hadn’t arrived back at the bungalow until four o’clock in the morning after dumping the body by the roadside and watching briefly as Yves skulked off into the darkness. He’d been living in dread of