Fair Horizon

by Rosalind Brett

  "I am a firm believer in the home influence," Karen told her. "It would be too distressing to have one's children grow away from one at the age of eight or so."

  The Swedish woman had shrugged. "To some women the love of children is more than the love of a husband. Me, I would send my children away to be educated—I would not want the bother of training them. And, also, I would wish to be free always to follow my husband. I like the excitements of a roving life."

  "Most of us," said Karen, "feel the need of a settled home. And if children had to live away from their parents for several years a great deal is missing on both sides. Family relationships seem so very important to me. But, of course," she added, inevitably, visualising impossible joys with Mark, "when one loves a man enough one accepts such heartaches."

  Inga had smiled enigmatically. "I do not think you will have to make the choice, Miss Ainsley. Settlers do not move far from their homesteads."

  KAREN compared her two evening dresses. Both looked young and

  demure, not at all suitable for dinner with two sophisticated bachelors.

  Later, when Elizabeth was consulted, she raised her dark, expressive brows. "We settlers, of course, don't dress for dinner engagements. We simply wear our best Sunday tuckers, if we have them, and a row of pearls or a brooch to divert attention from the five-year-old neckline. If I were you, I'd wear your black chiffon. It's stylish but noncommittal."

  In the end Karen decided to take her advice but not for Elizabeth's reasons. Way down in her mind hid a tiny hope that other evenings with Mark would follow, occasions when the two evening dresses might come into their own.

  The week would have dragged interminably had not Nova Lawson arrived at the Winchesters', eager to be initiated into her duties and to add her knowledge and experience to the final ordering of books and equipment. Nova, still carrying a secret in her dark brown eyes, sat with Karen on a packing-case in the private room attached to the schoolhouse, and worked out lists and a curriculum for the first dozen or so children, the sevens, eights and nines.

  "The one ten-year-old is a girl, thank goodness," Nova said. "She can work alone in this room but what about the half-dozen in the fourto-six group? Can you take those till I get running smoothly?"

  "I'll try. We never intended you to carry the whole school alone right from the beginning."

  "I suppose the numbers will grow," returned the other briefly. "It's just what I need. Life was beginning to catch up on me in that horrid hotel."

  Karen asked no questions. She went on talking about the children and the unfortunate fact that most of them were too individualistic through living on remote farms. Inevitably, her calm acceptance of the other girl as a friend and collaborator had its result. Over a smoky cup of tea brewed outdoors and consumed upon the veranda steps, Nova unburdened a little.

  "This chance means a lot to my people. They were badly shaken when I flunked the exams and Mother felt the humiliation deeply when I took the hotel post. Like most proud parents, she'd boasted of my prowess. In fact, I didn't know how to come home—" She tailed off and sipped the thick, milkless liquid.

  "No one is quite so good as a mother at such times," Karen helped her. "They go on believing in you."

  "Yes, mine did. It was often a strain to keep the cause of the fiasco to myself. A man, of course."

  So Roy had guessed it first time. Karen nodded sympathetically.

  "I met him at a party in Cape Town," Nova said broodingly. "He laughed at my ambitions and they did appear futile when he talked about marriage. All that last winter when I should have been attending lectures and studying, we had fun together. Then only two weeks before the Finals started, he went abroad, without even saying goodbye."

  Comment was superfluous. Karen nodded comprehension.

  "At any rate, it's taught me that men aren't to be trusted. I'm finished with them," Nova ended.

  "Don't say that. There are good and bad."

  Sceptically, Nova answered, 'Mostly bad. I met plenty in my last job and a lot of them were out for a good time and no handcuffs."

  "You'll meet a different kind here."

  Nova smiled in the slow, rather bitter way she had.

  After that, Nova's disastrous love affair was allowed to slip back into the well of the past. Her interest in the school filled her life, and she seemed content to sew and read, or to walk up to the coffee farm for a chat during her leisure. Karen liked her, but she thought it a pity that the thin, wiry Nova's taste in clothes was so strictly utilitarian. Her straight black hair was raked back into a loop on her neck, adding ten years to her bony little face.

  ON Thursday evening, Karen dressed for the dinner party at Colonel Williamson's. When she was ready she carried her coat and bag into

  the living-room, where her cousin was now preparing a supper trolly for herself and Justin.

  Elizabeth brandished a knife. "You look lovely, pet. All glowing and vital. What a pity you're not going out with someone a little more human than Mark. Still, I believe Colonel Williamson is not averse to the ladies, and he's been heard to wish himself married." ,

  When Mark came in, followed by Justin, Elizabeth poured out drinks. "Martini," she told Mark. "Suit you?"

  "Admirably, thanks." As he raised his glass, he flickered a teasing smile over Karen's black dress and burnished hair. Her colour deepened.

  The tolerant humour in Mark's expression did not escape Elizabeth. She tingled with sudden alarm. This invitation to Colonel Williamson's, Karen's sparkle and flush and Mark's good-humoured mockery. Was he playing with her? Mark was holding Karen's coat for her to slip into and Elizabeth summoned a hasty smile. "Don't keep her out too late, Mark. She's in your charge."

  "Do you suspect me, Elizabeth, knowing the care I take with your son?" "As if there were any comparison!"

  The sound of his car had completely died before Elizabeth's complacency returned, and even then she went on pondering her young cousin's undoubted pleasure in Mark's company. Karen might be no more than one-and-twenty but she was not a fool. She was as capable as the next woman of weighing up the futility of letting herself fall in love with that tall, good-looking, hawk-nosed builder of bridges. Unfortunately, commonsense and the early pangs of love seldom go together. And Mark certainly had his fascinations. His frank avoidance of marriage might tempt some women to whet their weapons. Inga Sanderfield, for instance.

  Meanwhile Karen was happier than she had ever been before. Mark in a white dinner-jacket was suave and charming and dangerously attractive. As they drove along the narrow, tree-walled road, following the powerful beams through a tunnel of darkness, he talked carelessly of other climates; the desert, the Far East, South America and Canada. "When my present job is finished, I have to make a big decision," he said, as though in continuation of a train of private thought. "I've been asked to join the board of a South African construction company as technical director. If I accept, it will mean living in Johannesburg."

  "Would you like that?"

  "I'd loathe it."

  "What's the alternative?"

  "Carrying on as I do at present, with my own office in Nairobi and roving commissions."

  "Then—if you'd loathe living in Johannesburg—"

  "It's not so simple as that. Sometime soon, I ought to think of settling down somewhere but, unless I start my own contracting company, there's not much chance of a permanent home in Kenya." A halt in the crisp tones and then, "Forget it. Can't imagine what dragged all this out of me on a night full of stars and on such an occasion. This is an occasion, you know."

  "Is it?" she said quietly, her hands locked tight in her lap.

  "Can't you feel it?" he asked, faintly derisive. "Or don't you dare?" The same words in a different tone might have twisted her heart with delicious anguish. His tantalising laugh broke the short silence. "Frustration is bad

  for the digestion. Why not let yourself go for once and say what you're thinking?"

  "I haven't eaten since lunch," she
replied, borrowing a shred of his mockery. "Besides, you'd probably consider my thoughts negligible."

  The emphasis flicked him. "Why do you say that?"

  "Well, my fuzzy sentimentalism is anathema to the materialist. I'm not begging to be scoffed at."

  He smiled. "You're learning quite a lot of the answers, aren't you? I'm not sure that I like being labelled a materialist, especially by a slip of a girl in black chiffon."

  "But it's true, isn't it?" she returned. "You haven't much faith in the purely abstract."

  "By purely abstract you mean Love, with a capital L. Women always do." He swung the car into an even narrower lane. "As a matter of fact, I do believe in love, because I know, from positive experience, that it does exist. But not in the way you like to visualise it. Deathless devotion is a tall order when you're dealing with frail human nature."

  "It's happening all the time," she said softly,

  "How do you know? I wouldn't mind betting that any honest man who's been married five years would agree that a lifetime is a deuce of a while to remain faithful to one woman."

  Karen was nettled. "Your friends might, but I could name a few who wouldn't."

  "Who, besides the imperturbable Justin?"

  "Most of our neighbours."

  "Sweet little Kitten," he said with a mock-pitying grin. "Who am I to _shatter your faith in the human species?" As usual, the discussion ended on a good-natured jeer, and with Karen wondering if it would ever be possible to dislodge his cynicism. This evening there was no time for conjecture, for the lights of Colonel Williamson's house gleamed through the young forest of acacias, jacarandas and mimosa trees which crowded his front garden.

  THE Colonel came out on to the veranda to meet them. Of average height, slim, and fresh-complexioned, he looked quite young in the shadows, but

  under the bright glow of the several lamps in his lounge, the lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth were etched indelibly and combined with the white wings at his temples to add a hint of dissipation to his middle-aged good looks.

  During the evening, Karen remembered that he had a reputation for philandering, though apparently since he had come to live in this district some while ago, his behaviour had been impeccable. He was by no means wealthy but his house was evidence of a gracious style of living.

  Charles Williamson's dining-room was furnished in delicate imbuia and

  beamed with solid black green-heart wood. His lounge, carried out in maroon and natural linen, the floor highly waxed between Mirzapore rugs and the walls a restful oatmeal, was an example of inexpensive good taste in the wilderness. The single ornament, a dainty sylph in bronze offering on tiptoe, her arms upstretched, a black bowl cascading exotic blooms, was repeated in a cleverly arranged pink crystal mirror.

  "You're admiring my bronze lady?" Charles asked later in the evening, noticing the direction of Karen's gaze. "I like her, too. She keeps me young."

  "It reminds me of the entrance-halls of the hotels in pre-war Rome," said Mark, "except that the figures there dispensed with the drape. She's entirely out of proportion, you know," he tacked on critically. "Those elongated limbs on a live woman would qualify her as a freak exhibit."

  "If such ornaments were true to life," Karen submitted, "no one would buy them. I think she's graceful, and the whole piece is charming."

  "Thank you," said Charles. "We'll ignore Mark's comments and advise him to stick to his realism. Do you swim, Miss Ainsley—or may I call you Karen?"

  "Karen, please. Swimming is the recreation I miss most in Kenya. The stretch of river nearest the farm is choked with growth, so we can only dip and dry off."

  "If I have a few men idle some time, I'll send them up to clear a hundred yards of the river near the farm," Mark promised offhandedly.

  "You must both come over for tennis," Charles said. "Now that we're really acquainted, Karen, we'll go all out for one of those nice comfortable friendships that are indispensable to happiness in this or any other country."

  "H'm," Mark inserted. "I seem to have heard that somewhere before. Luckily this young woman is only half' as naive as she looks." He slipped the cuff back from his watch. "I'd better be taking her home, Charles."

  "So early? Very well, if you must. What will you have as a nightcap?"

  "Nothing at all, thanks," said Karen. "May I powder my nose and get my coat?"

  "Of course."

  Mark opened the door for her and remained standing, while Charles poured whisky and soda. "Your young friend is attractive," said the older man, offering a glass. "Not beautiful, but refreshing."

  "And comparatively unsophisticated, in case you're interested," Mark informed him between sips.

  "I'm not—not in the way you mean. Does she intend to stay and marry in Kenya?"

  "I'm just a friend of hers, old chap, not her Dutch uncle."

  Karen reappeared, smiling. Mark helped her into her coat and thrust a hand under her arm as they went out to the car.

  "How soon will you come again?" asked Charles. "Next Saturday, for lunch and an afternoon's tennis?"

  "I'd like to very much."

  "You'll come, too, Mark?"

  "Sorry, I have to chase into town," he said.

  `He'll see Inga,' Karen thought instantly.

  As they entered the dark chasm of the road, Mark did not switch on the interior lighting. Karen snuggled into her corner, loving the drowsy warmth and his nearness, and wishing this drive might go on forever. She watched him surreptitiously, tenderness in her eyes, longing to press her face against that firm, close-shaven chin.

  Tonight, all things were possible. This was the beginning of all the dear adventures they would share, the exchanges of sympathy, the small excitements and foolish, unforgettable incidents that go to make up a deep, everlasting friendship. And Inga? Inga was a chilly breath on the brow; in the morning's light she might be an icy blast. But this was now.

  He turned his head and looked at her. "It's a grand night, isn't it?" "Heavenly," she whispered. "Just heavenly."

  CHAPTER V

  THOUGH she used the bush car whenever it was available, Karen's chief I means of transport was the little native pony, Bambu. Some time ago, Mark had asked whether she wouldn't rather ride something with more class and spirit, and she had replied frankly, "I've grown too fond of Bambu to get rid of him and it would hurt his feelings to be landed with a well-bred pasture companion."

  Mark, of course, had teased her unmercifully but it made no difference. She knew where she was with Bambu.

  From the pony's back, she viewed some of the most breathtaking vistas in the country. Fields of pyrethrum and sky-blue flowering flax, the sinister beauty of a soda lake rimmed with pink flamingos, a herd of impala, imperial horns erect, static on the plains, and the remote, virginal peak of Mount Kenya being divested of its shroud.

  Her most contented hours were spent riding round with Justin. His mature coffee trees were reddening with ripe berries and the new small ones planted to replace diseased stock, sprouted sturdily, each within its wigwam of poles laced with grass. Between the groves, the boys were continually at work uprooting bold native weeds and using the heaps as mulches.

  The huge acreage of groundnuts on the adjoining land had made up for the late start. Justin thought they might average seven hundred pounds to the acre, which would cover costs and leave -a margin of profit. Next season, the land would yield even better, with lower overheads.

  "Trust Mark Howard to pick a winner," said Justin without rancour. "When Elizabeth and I began farming, you couldn't make pin-money on groundnuts. Mrs. Sanderfield is in on a good thing."

  Karen withheld her opinion. Inga's two visits within the last fortnight had filled her with vague foreboding. A couple of days ago, Mark and the Swedish woman had stopped at the farm on their way back to Nairobi. Inga had spent a night with a house-party at Colonel Williamson's, and Mark, too, had been invited there probably at Inga's request. The way she had looked at him in Elizabeth's living-ro
om, her fingers lingering close to his wrist and her long, darkened lashes veiling her dusky eyes, sent-tremors along Karen's spine. When Mark asked after Bambu and teasingly alluded to him as a rocking-horse, Inga slipped her arm inside his and stood smiling aloofly at Karen. 'As though,' Karen fumed to herself, 'I were some half-developed nitwit with a childish crush on her man.'

  If Mark had disengaged himself, even gently, unobtrusively, Karen would have minded less. But he was in one of those maddening, bantering moods and it almost looked as if the situation intrigued him. He said they must be going. "Coming out to the car, Kitten?"

  It was not too pleasant, watching him make Inga comfortable in the front seat but, when he looked down at Karen before getting in himself, her jealousy dissolved in a glorious uprush of emotion. The warmth of his hand over hers, his smile, half-lazy, half-intimate, accelerated the riot of her heart. Then he was gone in a swirl of dust and she was left to brood upon Inga's next move.

  The brief farewell between Mark and the English girl had not escaped Inga; neither had it perturbed her. Over a woman like that, so sweet and unselfish, so patently unfitted to handle a man of Mark's worldliness, she intended to waste no qualm. It might be politic, though, to erase from his mind any picture he might retain of pleading eyes and tremulous lips. "You will stay in Nairobi tonight?"

  "A week ago I made a tentative dinner appointment for this evening. I shall drive back to Grassa tomorrow."

  "That is disappointing. A young sculptor, a countryman of mine, is in town for a few days. I would so much like you to see his work."

  "It'll keep till the morning. If you like, I'll call in for a drink at about eleven, just before I leave. Will this fellow be there with you?"

  Her eyes gleamed. "Would you prefer that he were there?"

  He grinned. "You mean for the sake of appearances? At eleven in the morning, in Nairobi?"

  "You are forgetting that the house is yours, Mark, and people love a thing to talk about. However," with a rippling laugh, "if you are not disturbed, I am not also. I think you will like that young man's work. It is delicate, and fine drawn—"