Garden of Love

Is there no cathegory for "Illustration"? - I'm trying to keep this vaguely chronological, so here comes another watercolour done in the mid-eighties (when I still had time to paint, sigh...) - this one is an illustration of one of my favorite soppy novels, "Trade Wind" by Indian-born British writer M.M. Kaye.

The story is set on the island of Zanzibar in the 19th century, and tells of an independent-minded young American woman, Hero Hollis, who comes out there to stay with the family of her fiancee after her father has died. She is a passionate opponent of the slave trade and fancies that she will be able to contribute to its termination. On the journey out, she goes overboard in a storm and is rescued by rowdy, enigmatic captain Rory Frost - an outlaw in the local European-American community, and a slave trader. As the rules of novels of that particular kind will have it, Hero and Captain Frost are secretly attracted toward each other, although on the surface they reject and despise the other person for their ideals (or lack thereof) and worldview.
Some important scenes of the novel take place in Rory Frost's country house, Kivulimi - the "House of Shadow" - with its paradisical garden. Hero suspects Rory to hide slaves in this house, after she has witnessed him unloading mysterious packages while being on his ship. Later in the novel, she discovers the situation of the house by accident, while on a picnic, and can't help herself but to go and explore. Here is the scene from the novel:

It did not take Hero long to reach the house, for though the felucca had kept on its way for half a mile beyond the bay where the house stood, the boat had landed the picnic party some distance back in order that they might bathe out of sight of the felucca's crew, and the wind-worn rocks that marked the northern end of the bay were barely a quarter of a mile from the spot that Aunt Abby had finally selected.
Hero rounded them cautiously, and scanning the fortress-like outer wall and the blank, shuttered windows of the house, decided that the whole place was empty. Empty and quiet and deserted. Behind her the soft crash and drag of waves falling on a shelving beach provided a pleasant accompaniment to the whisper and rustle of leaves and palm fronds, but both seemed only to accentuate the warm, sleepy, scented silence of the hot afternoon, and nothing moved on the curve of the bay except the surf and the little white sandcrabs.
She had never intended to do more than take a closer look at the place from the shelter of the coral rocks, and while keeping out of sight herself, examine the approaches to see if there was anything that would lend support to her suspicions. If there were newly landed slaves imprisoned behind that wall there would surely be some sign of them. Voices, muffled cries and wailing; the stench of dirty, terrified, sweating black bodies penned up in some locked cellar. But there was no sign or sound to indicate the presence of any occupants in the silent house: no thread of smoke or smell of cooking. Nor, strangely enough, was there anything sinister in that silence. If there had been, Hero might have behaved very differently; but even the blind, shuttered windows merely gave the house a curious impression of peace. A drowsy, withdrawn look; as though it had retreated behind its trees and its guardian wall and settled down to dream and wait, and listen absently to the voice of the Trade Wind crooning through the quiet rooms and under the empty archways.
Kivulimi... the syllables had a lilting charm that caught Hero's fancy, and she repeated them under her breath. They had, she thought, something of the same singing quality as the surf and the swaying palm fronds, and she was surprised and a little ashamed of herself for entertaining such an absurdly fanciful idea. But there was something about the silent house that was as intriguing as its name, and which drew her out of the safe shadow of the rocks and across the open sand, to stand at the foot of the path that led up over the rocks to a small, iron-studded door that was set deep in a recess of the outer wall.
It was the fact that the door stood ajar that decided her. Had it been closed she would probably (though by no means certainly) have turned back. But looking up at it she could catch a glimpse of sun-dappled shade and the crimson fire of hibiscus beyond it, and suddenly she was no longer Hero Hollis, but Eve or Pandora or Bluebeard's wife. She stood quite still for several minutes, not in doubt, but to listen, and hearing no sound but the surf and the sea-wind, ran lightly up the steps.
The heat of sun-baked stone burned through the thin soles of her slippers, and as she pushed open the door the iron hinges creaked harshly in the silence. But though the sound startled her it did not stop her, and she stepped over the threshold out of the glare of the beach and into cool greenness, and found herself standing in a garden full of narrow, winding paths, overgrown flower-beds and innumerable trees.
It seemed she had been right in thinking that the wall that bounded it was part of an old fortress, for she saw now that it was a great deal older than the house, and was, on one side, overhung with flowering creepers and honeycombed with archways and cells that must once have been guard-rooms and granaries and stables for horses. The sight of those dark, stone cells revived all her momentarily forgotten suspicions, and she tiptoed along a path that ran parallel to the wall and peered cautiously into several of them. But it was soon plain that they were unoccupied except for spiders and bats, and that no one had entered them for some considerable time, for the weeds that grew up to the doorless arches were tall and undisturbed, and the falling sprays of bougainvillea, jasmine and trumpet-flower that veiled them had not been cut back or broken.
Hero turned from them, and lured by a gleam of water, followed another path that brought her to the edge of a shallow pool flanked by stone birds and full of fallen leaves, where gorgeous scarlet dragonflies sunned themselves on the lily pads. On the far side of the pool lay a tangled wilderness of flowers, hibiscus, zinnias, roses and coral plant, a blue mist of plumbago, and a white fountain of jasmine that filled the shade with heavy sweetness; and glimpsed between tree-trunks and a lace of leaves, a short flight of steps leading up to a long, stone-built terrace that fronted the house. The wind whispered in the branches of peepul and jacaranda, orange, tamarind and rain tree, but it could not disturb the tranquility of the warm, flower-filled greenness below, and it seemed to Hero that garden, terrace and house alike might have belonged to that Princess of fairy tale, Aurora, who pricked her finger on a spindle and fell asleep for a hundred years while the briars grew up about her.
The thought was not a particularly pleasing one, for it recalled the fact that one of her Crayne cousins had nicknamed her "The Sleeping Beauty": kindly explaining that he "reckoned she was sound asleep behind her hedge of prickles, and that any Prince who had the idea of waking her up was going to have to take a goddammed hatchet to hack his way through'em!".
Hero had not considered this in the least amusing, and she grimaced at the recollection; and then smiled, thinking how absurd it was to be brooding on Hartley's impertinences in a garden in Zanzibar! It was all these roses...
A spray of themn, yellow and sweet-smelling, caught at her skirts as she turned from the pool, and she bent to disentangle them - And was suddenly still; her hand rigid on the hem of her black poplin dress and the smile frozen on her face: staring incredulously at a pair of booted feet whose owner stood motionless among the shadows of the trees on the far side of the rose bush.
For a dreadful, dragging moment it seemed as though the sight had deprived her of all power of thought or movement, and she could only crouch there, staring, while her heart raced and her breath caught in her throat. Then she straightened up swiftly, hearing the lace of her petticoat rip, and met the level gaze of a pair of pale and disconcertingly cold eyes.
"Good afternoon, Miss Hollis," said Rory Frost politely. "This is indeed an unexpected pleasure."

From [link]: Trade Wind, chapter 17