"Quite right," he agreed cheerily, "it isn't. What shall we do today, Karen? Cut everything and picnic in the wilderness? I know a marvellous spot by a mountain stream where you can dip your toes and scoop out rainbow trout with your bare hands. At least, I believe I remember it. Anyway, it'll be exciting trying to find it."
Most outings with Roy were exciting. He had that faculty, which is the envy of the more prosaic, of converting the smallest incident into a moment of enjoyment. His whole outlook was so singularly uncomplicated that one wondered why he clung to the legend of Glenys.
After lunch they set out for the fabulous stream. Very soon they left the main road, and for about thirty miles travelled along a stony road that climbed and dipped between farms and small forests of timber. Then Roy chose a leafy by-path which was little more than a track through mimosa and whattle and thorn trees.
It was nearly five-thirty when at last, dusty and triumphant, the car pulled into a small glade on the bank of a boulder-strewn river, whose waters ran clear and shallow.
"Not a fish in sight," said Karen, stretching luxuriously, "but it's certainly a heavenly place, if we did have to swallow half the dust in Kenya to get here. Do open the flask of tea, Roy."
Like exuberant children, they walked into the stream, a cake in one hand and a cup in the other. The few fish they disturbed were small and drab-skinned. "If they're rainbow trout, I'm a chameleon," commented Karen. "Still, you meant well, and this really is a wildly beautiful reach of river. Doesn't the water feel good round your ankles?"
It was no time at all before', the parrots screeched their homing notes and shadows filled the glade. Roy stuffed wet feet into his shoes, alarm in his eyes. "Let's start for town. I simply must find the road before it's dark. This is really a full day's jaunt. Hop in."
W ITH more speed than was wise on the tree-lined track, Roy got going.
Crazily, the car lurched over the tussocks and they had retraced the
greater part of the lane before darkness brushed in from behind and nightjars
and fireflies came out. In the car's beams the bright orbs of many small beasts were transfixed, and huge night moths and flying beetles cracked and spattered against the windscreen.
Roy groaned softly to himself. "What a prize fool! Even if we find the road we shall be stuck. D'you know what I've done?"
"Not run out of petrol?"
"No, but just as bad. When we stopped back there the radiator had boiled nearly dry. I meant to fill up from the stream, and forgot. Wait a bit. Did we leave any tea?"
"About a cupful." Both of them wailed as they saw the good tea poured away, even in so good a cause.
Presently, Roy said hollowly, "I've a nasty feeling that we've hit a different track. These trees are mahoganies—look at the size of them."
"What do we do now?"
"Keep going. All paths lead somewhere."
This one eventually brought them to a rough granite road along which they bumped for a mile or two before the engine seized.
"Gosh, I'm sorry," said Roy, his jauntiness gone awry. "It's too silly for words. There must be plenty of water in this district or you wouldn't see so many trees, but how we're to find it with only the stars to help us—" He slithered out of the car. "Let's walk a little way. We may spot a farmhouse light"
They did spot a farmhouse light, but not until both were tired and exceptionally cold. The farmer, a middle-aged man who lived alone, gave them goats' milk cheese with bread and thick black coffee, and when they were warm he drove them in his own car to where Roy's stood, pathetically small and dust-shrouded and thirsting for the can of water that was tipped into it.
"You're sure you won't stay the night?" the man asked. "It's a good fifty miles to Nairobi, most of it rough and slow going—the deuce of a journey in the dark. We're off the main road here."
"Good of you to offer," Roy answered, somewhat restored. "But I have an early appointment tomorrow with my chief, and besides, they may have the police out if Miss Ainsley is reported missing. Good night, sir, and thank you."
It was after ten when they left the farmer, and nearly two o'clock when Roy stopped the car outside the completely darkened hotel in Nairobi. "They've locked me out," said Karen sleepily.^
"Can you get up to your room the back way?"
"The boys are cream-washing the bedroom verandas, so there ought to be a ladder about."
Entry by way of the veranda was alarmingly easy. Roy went up first, and switched on her bedroom light. Karen followed, whispered good night and waited till he had descended and removed the ladder.
Karen slipped off her linen frock and pulled her wrap close about her. She
would have liked a warm bath and a glass of hot milk, but though she knew that others rang for the night porter, it was more than she dared herself. So she went to the carafe for a sip of water and found, leaning against it, an hotel note intimating that Mrs. Sanderfield had telephoned at eleven p.m. and called in person at twelve-ten. A pencilled note on the back asked that Miss Ainsley get in touch with Mrs. Sanderfield before leaving Nairobi. Dazed with weariness, Karen slid between the sheets, to dream of Inga spearing rainbow-trout with a pearl-handled knife.
CHAPTER IV
IT was about noon the next day that Karen looked up Inga in the telephone- ' directory and failed to find her. Of course. The house was Mark's. Her skin prickled as she read his name and address in print. Howard, Mark Crayshaw, Tanya, Carlyon Drive. A conviction took hold of her. She never wanted to see that house, outside or in. Always for her, the atmosphere would be tinged with expensive perfume and a husky, foreign voice.
Jerkily, she spoke to Inga. "Oh, yes," came the confident tones. "You are out very late last night, the boy tell me. Perhaps you come not at all?"
"Perhaps," said Karen, detesting the mature playfulness. "What can I do for you?"
Inga chose to ignore the suggestion of sarcasm. "There is a small packet, rather important, which I should much like that you give to Mark when you go back. Parcels are sometimes lost in this post. You will come to lunch and I will give it to you."
"I can't do that," said Karen firmly. "My time is fully booked till I leave tomorrow morning. If you will send a boy with the packet, I'll give him a receipt for it."
A moment's silence. Then, "Very well. You sound a little distrait, Miss Ainsley, but I understand. Late nights . . . Nairobi . . ."
"If that's all—goodbye, Mrs. Sanderfield." Karen was trembling as she made her way out to a grass chair on the veranda.
The package came, small, oblong, carefully sealed and addressed. Karen slipped it into her suitcase and accepted an invitation to lunch with a young couple just in from Uganda.
Next day, Sunday, Roy drove her back to Guaba, and left her at once so that he could do some packing and make arrangements to close his house for a couple of months. Elizabeth shot questions at Karen. Did she go to the races? Had she danced? How were the shops looking?
Karen said, "I believe you miss living near a town more than I do. Justin must take, you for a holiday as soon as he can leave his trees, and
you'll have to abandon Keith and the dairy work to me. We'll get through all right."
"Don't tempt me," begged Elizabeth. "Not yet." They talked most of the morning, while Keith cleared off to the Snake Hole, fearful that his presence might remind them of lessons. It was just after lunch that Karen referred to the package which Inga Sanderfield had entrusted to her.
"Mark was here on Saturday morning," Elizabeth informed her. "It's unlikely that he'll come again before next weekend. Did the Swedish lovely say it was urgent?"
"Not urgent. Rather important, she said."
"Justin might take it, unless you fancy the drive yourself?"
"I—think I do."
She stepped into a cold bath and out again; put on a striped silk frock and brushed her light curling hair back from her temples. The treatment by the Nairobi hairdresser had put lights where none had been before. Still only moder
ately pretty, she admitted ruefully to her reflection. There seemed no getting round that dewy, innocent look, try as she might to modify it.
Karen set off in the bush-car. Although this was only her second trip down the road to Grassa, she recalled every bend and landmark. The group of aloes at the foot of a podocarpus, the pungent pool of bog myrtle; even the solitary duiker who bounded away among the trees was one she had seen before—or his first cousin Here were the river and log bridge. Karen switched off and waited a second before sliding out on to the grass. Her low-heeled white shoes took the logs without mishap. Over there, through the trees, was Mark's house. If he was out she would follow the road down to the bridge. Almost she wished she might find the house empty, in order to stretch this sweet expectancy to the limit.
But while she was crossing the clearing to the house, Hanim appeared. "Greetings, memsahib," he said with his usual dignity. "I go tell bwana."
Karen had reached the veranda when Mark came out, his grin more candid than she had ever seen it. Her heart gave its familiar twist. As she smiled up at him, a sudden scented breath of air lifted a tendril of hair and blew it against her forehead.
"You look like a nice little girl come to a party," he mocked gently. "Is the present for me?"
She put the packet into his hand. "Mrs. Sanderfield sent it."
He turned it about, and then dropped it into his pocket. "My wrist-watch. She had it cleaned for me. Well, Kitten?"
"Very well," she assured him from the bottom of her heart.
"I told you a break would do you good. Now that you've had it you don't even object to my calling you Kitten."
"In fact I like it," she said.
"A drink now, or would you prefer to wait and have tea?" "Tea is more in my line, please."
He called Hanim and asked him to have tea ready at four. As they went down the steps he took Karen's elbow. "Come and have a peep at my bridge. It's at a messy stage at present. Like most young things, it can't make up its mind how to combine beauty with usefulness. It doesn't realise, poor structure of steel and stone, that it has to mellow and grow into the surroundings before it can lay claim to beauty." Strolling at her side he went on talking in similar vein, his voice quizzical and friendly. It was the most natural thing in the world that his arm should slip about her shoulders and his hand close firmly upon her upper arm. Natural, yet it filled her with a confusion of joy and breathless longing which stunned with its violence. Could he possibly be so entirely unmoved as he chose to appear?
JUSTIN, John Winchester and other fathers of school-age children took
turns in supervising the completion of the schoolhouse. When the stage of white-distempering the outer walls had been reached, Mark drove down with Karen and Elizabeth, Keith tagging along, too.
"Pretty good," Mark stated, and the icing inflection in his voice was praise indeed. "I like the half-way panelling and the cool green ceiling. But you ought to have plugged the walls for maps, and so on, before they were distempered."span>
"We remembered too late," said Karen ruefully. "There were other silly omissions as well and it looks as though we shall have to have homemade tables and chairs instead of the desks we decided upon. We can't find anyone who knows what goes into the carpentering of a school desk."
"I'll bet my Indian fundi knows—I've never caught him out yet."
"Why you couldn't have come in on the thing officially from the beginning, I don't know," complained Elizabeth. "Oh yes, I'm well aware that in principle you still disagree with privately built schools . . . and that you're a champion splitter of hairs. You're a fraud, Mark."
He laughed. "Women can't see any difference between deliberately flouting the Government, and giving a helping-hand to neighbours."
"You're not what I'd call a neighbourly soul though, lately, I must say, you're improving. Can it be that you seek a change from Hanim's cooking, or is it the lure of someone's pretty eyes?"
"I prefer variety in my dishes," he admitted with a wink. "But I always feel especially good when a contract has passed the half-way line. This one at Grassa is going extraordinarily well. No hitches in supply and very little sickness among the men. It looks now as though I shall finish weeks short of the time, which is unheard of."
Truculently, Keith chimed in, "If that means you're going to leave earlier, I hope the bridge breaks in the middle and has to be built again."
"Hush," said Elizabeth. "Can you imagine a Howard bridge caving in?"
"I meant struck by lightning," Keith amended hastily. "Though I think I'd rather it smashed the school."
"You little horror. You've been pretending to look forward to going to school."
"The school is Karen's—the bridge is Mark's," he replied naively, and scuffed his way outside.
Karen, bright colour in each cheek, picked some spots of paint from the window.
"That boy of yours is not too well mannered, Elizabeth," said Mark, an edge to his voice.
"I'm sorry," she answered sincerely. "He does seem to let go sometimes when you and Karen are together. He's very fond of her really, but I think, in his childish way, he regards her as an intruder between you and him and he's a little jealous. It's entirely ridiculous, of course, and I will try to break him of it." She paused. "In fact I'll go out and tackle him now, before he forgets what he said."
Karen remained half-facing the window. "You shouldn't allow yourself to be hurt by such a trifle," Mark said irritably.
"I'm not hurt."
"You are. It's stamped all over you and I hate to see it. If the thoughtlessness of a seven-year-old can do that to you, how are you going to react if something big should hit you? Sensitiveness can be very much overdone, you know, and cause one a heap of unnecessary misery." When she remained silent, he added, "You're the sort who always learns the hard way, aren't you?"
"I suppose so. It comes from growing up alone."
"Not entirely. I grew up alone but you wouldn't call me hypersensitive. I think I must have recognised quite young the folly of allowing individuals to play too great a part in my life. Without going too deeply into the subject, it's obvious that once you allow others to get really close, they're the cause of quite a bit of pain."
His half-serious tone drew Karen's gaze to his eyes, nut-brown and baffling. "Pleasures, too," she said. After a long second in Which, surprisingly, her glance did not waver, she asked, 'Why do you discount human relationships, Mark?"
He shrugged. "They're too flimsy. Two of my friends were killed in Burma. A third died of a fever here in Kenya."
"And . . . women?" she queried, at last lowering her lids.
"A problem that I've been tempted once or twice to have a shot at," he answered promptly, the whimsical touch back in his expression.
"I thought you knew all there is to know about women."
"The sanest of us have our wild moments," he grinned. "It's when the moment hangs on that we're in danger. Don't worry your sweet head, Kitten; I don't usually have mine in broad daylight." He ran his hand over the cedar panelling. "I'm not saying," he added softly, deliberately, "that I didn't want to do something that would put that child's gaffe into its proper perspective, when you went all pink and quivery a few minutes ago."
Her pulses quickened. "Do .. . something?"
"Kiss away the hurt," he jeered gently.
Blankly, her heart suffocatingly near to her throat, Karen looked out at the short expanse of red, root-pitted earth strewn with brick and granite rubble.
But at that moment Elizabeth came back. "He's penitent but not yet apologetic," she said. "One can't expect too much from a single scolding. If you two are ready, I'd like to get back to my dairy."
Keith was sitting in the dust close to the car. As they approached he got up and opened the doors. "Karen can sit next to Mark," he said, with an air of grave magnaminity. "I'll come in the back with you, Mums."
Realising that this was the nearest he could come to an apology, Karen accepted without question. As the d
oors slammed and Mark turned. on the ignition, she heard him make a faint sound of amusement. Everything, apparently, was back to normal.
WHEN they reached the farmhouse, Mark laid a detaining hand for an instant on Karen's wrist but did not speak till Elizabeth had hurried
off, followed by Keith. Then, "Have you met Colonel Williamson?"
"Yes, once. He called in for half an hour at the Hardings' anniversary party some time ago."
"You've never seen his house?"
"Only from the road— a few yards of roof above the trees."
"Will you go there with me to dinner? Charles doesn't entertain or go out much, but he likes company and I promised I'd take you."
"He doesn't know me."
"He soon will. You'll like Charles. He's unmarried and in his dangerous forties." His fingers snapped airily. "A far wiser proposition as a husband than any of your young Government officials. Charles mentioned next Thursday. Will that suit you?"
"Yes. I'd love it."
"Good. I'll let him know. If I don't get up here again before then, be ready at seven-thirty. All right? So long, Kitten."
Karen watched the car recede and then made her way slowly indoors to her bedroom. At last he had singled her out. Dare she hope that she had invaded the hard-defended fortress of his privacy? True, he had alluded to Colonel Williamson as an eligible bachelor, implying that she might ultimately benefit matrimonially by friendship with him, but wasn't that typical of Mark —to excuse what he might deem a weakness in himself? Why should he consider it weak to need the companionship of a woman now and then? Not only the companionship, her heart whispered, taking sudden wings. His voice came back, soft and mocking: "Kiss away the hurt." Four notes of heavenly music. For a little while she forgot Inga.
But Inga had not forgotten Karen or a conversation which she had had with her when she was staying at the coffee farm. Inga had said
patronisingly, "You, Miss Ainsley, retain the notions of your grandmother. You do not believe in sending children to boarding-schools?"
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