Mark was interested, as she had known he would be. This evening, she must get in touch with the man who chiselled wild animals from Carrara stone.
WHENWHEN Mark's car drew up outside the house in Carlyon Drive next morning, Inga was ready for him. She had made a little bet with herself
that she would persuade him to stay with her for lunch. Her informal gown in pale rose stood out richly against the background of carved dark wood and pale tweed upholstery, and accentuated the faintly artistic atmosphere created by a central table displaying sculptured leopard, buck of different kinds and wild birds.
As Mark came into the room, she stood up, noting his appreciative glance, which was not entirely for the lounge—his lounge. "It's as hot as Hades this morning," he said, "but you look delightfully cool."
"A strong drink, or will you join me in iced tea?"
"Iced tea sounds good."
The servant brought the tray and a silver kettle and Inga made the tea and served it in tall glasses. Clear as amber, fragrant with fresh mint, cool and acid with lemon, and extravagantly sweetened to his taste. The cheese sticks provided a perfect accompaniment.
He relaxed, entirely contented, and reached for an alabaster gazelle. "Clever," he said, turning it. "Is the artist coming?"
"No," she said regretfully. "He is at work on a commission in the garden of a Government official. He is sorry not to meet you."
"A pity. These sculptures are fascinating—I don't remember seeing anything quite so ambitious."
"I suppose Mark," Inga said, with nicely balanced hesitation, "you could not stay to lunch? I might get him here."
"Impossible, I'm afraid. I've already left it late to start back. Tell him I'd like to see more of his stuff next time I'm in town."
"He will be gratified." She took a fresh glass, filled and flavoured it and set it in the place of the one he had drained. Then she sat back and regarded him, the poised hostess in his home. It was then that she noticed the package which had slipped from his knee into his chair. The sketchy wrapping, a sheet of tissue, had split, and she could see what appeared to be cornelians and agate and amethyst set in metal. She gestured. "You would like more wrapping for your trinket? The boy will see to it."
He retrieved the package. "Shop assistants never wrap goods properly unless you chase them. This box has sharp corners—it needs a cardboard container." Carelessly, he dropped the thing into his pocket.
A studded cigarette or jewel-box, guessed Inga, and he is taking it back with him, perhaps to the honey-haired Miss Ainsley at the farm. Inga began to think furiously.
"So you return to your bridge, Mark. It is isolated, your place?"
"It won't be, in a year or two. A township will grow up round Grassa."
"I am thinking in the present—for you. It must bore you to have only Charles Williamson for a friend."
"There are the Patersons and the Winchesters fairly near, and the Hardings are only twelve miles away. I go into Guaba once or twice a week
for supplies and make a practice of calling on one of them each time! He had emptied his second glass and was again examining the buck. "They are good for the vanity—these farmers?" she inquired lightly.
"For the soul and the soil," he amended. "They are steeped in domesticity and crops. Perhaps I like them because their way of life is so different from mine. They're settled and solid, whereas I'm always on the move."
Studiously casual, Inga said, "Miss Ainsley is of the same stock—what you call settled and solid. She will make the excellent wife for a. settler."
"How can you tell?" He shrugged. "English woman on the whole are wonderfully adaptable. They've travelled with their men and stuck to them in the queerest places and come up smiling. Miss Ainsley probably has all sorts of reserves tucked away that she's scarcely aware of."
"Quite true," Inga conceded, "but her inclination is to the home. She has told me once how much it would hurt her to move from place to place, to have no real home."
Just faintly Mark's tone changed. "Women often say things without meaning them."
"Yes," she admitted generously. "Most of us employ the fib at times. But it is not necessary to lie to another woman on such a topic. Why should we doubt the word of a girl who confesses a desire to live in comfort and peace in her own little house?" She smiled disarmingly. "You are surprised, Mark? But I am not! She is a nice girl, that Miss Ainsley, and I hope she will get the fine, stodgy husband and settled home that will complete her happiness. It would be too sad if she chose unwisely."
"Too bad for both herself and the man," he agreed curtly.
"How I wish we could have this whole day together. Lunch—and the races—and dinner somewhere bright and enchanting." With mock mournfulness she sighed at him. "Your old bridge, Mark."
"The bridge will still be there tomorrow, and the day after," he said and Inga turned aside to hide the glint of triumph in her smoky eyes.
THE school was now complete. With the aid of native boys, Mark's fuiredi had made a dozen desks in solid teak, and the necessary furniture
for Nova's private room in warm-hued podo wood. The school grounds were fenced and dug, and a wide paved path had been laid between the five-barred gate and the front entrance. There were even a cycle shed and a pyramid of rope to be cut into lengths for tethering ponies among the trees. The school cupboards, a gift from Colonel Williamson, already held neat piles of printed primers and exercise-books, stacks of pencils, crayons, paint-boxes, coloured raffia, cut-outs, skipping-ropes, trays of sand and an assortment of educational toys. Everything was new. Nova Lawson said it made her feel a different woman just to stand in the main schoolroom and smell the fresh wood, and to visualise how it would look a week ahead, when lessons began.
In a few days, Roy was due back in the district. The official opening,
quite a grand affair with eats and drinks provided, had been arranged for the day after his .return, and Colonel Williamson had consented to perform a small ceremony. Mark had been asked first, as soon as he was back from Nairobi.
"But for your help, we'd still be struggling at the bricks and mortar stage," Elizabeth told him one day, meeting his car on the road. "Do sink your principles this once and declare us open."
"Charles Williamson will make a sparkling speech and talk to the toddlers afterwards," he said.
"You will come to the opening, won't you?"
"I think not. You can do without me."
"Karen will be disappointed if you don't. Please come, Mark."
"Can't be done. I shall be some miles away on the other side of the river for a time. We're extending the road."
"Oh dear. But you'll be returning each night to Grassa?"
"Probably."
"Then will you come, to the little dinner party we're giving on the evening of the opening day?"
"Sorry, Elizabeth. I shall be working hard and late."
Exasperation lit the dark eyes. "What's the matter with you, Mark? You can't let Karen down like this. She's counting on you."
"It's time she learned never to count on anyone." And he drove away. More angry than she cared to show, Elizabeth went back to the house. Over the past few months, she and Justin had had quite a lot for which to be grateful to Mark. He had sent up many loads of logs and a few bags of precious potatoes. Often when he came back from Guaba he left a twenty-five pound sack of fine white flour at the farm, and once he had brought her a roll of floral linen and several yards of pure silk. Then there were the two ox-teams purchased for working his own farm; he had begged Justin to "keep them fit" till they should be needed. And, recently, a fine stretch of river had been cleared for bathing. All this, apart from what he had voluntarily provided for the school. Mark was generous enough with his money and goods, but his personality remained baffling and withdrawn—the more bewildering because just a short while ago she had been sure he was beginning to unbend.
An hour later, when Elizabeth went into the house for tea, Karen was there, with Nova Laws
on. "Nova's had some news," said Karen. "Her mother is coming for the opening. Wouldn't it be nice if she could stay for the festivities? D'you think the Winchesters might put her up?"
"We'll arrange it somehow. She must certainly attend our party." "You've asked so many already," Nova put in hesitantly.
"We can seat twenty. As a matter of fact, Nova, your news has come at the right time. I've had one invitation turned down already, and other refusals may follow."
Karen, setting out cups on the tea tray, asked idly, "Who's turned us down . . . the Hardings?"
"Oh, no," said Elizabeth clearly. "It isn't the Hardings. They'll be there all right. Mark came by soon after lunch and told me that he'll be working too far away to attend our gathering." She watched Karen's back as she added, "He can't come to the dinner party, either."
Slowly Karen poured tea. "I rather thought he might make the effort. Did he say when he'll be up here again?"
"Not for two or three weeks, I should say."
When Karen handed the cups, Elizabeth gave her a swift, penetrating glance. No drastic change in her expression, thank goodness, though she was a trifle pale; but she and Nova had just walked up from the school in the sun, which was enough to tire anyone. It was unusual, though, for her not to eat a cake or even a biscuit with her tea. Bother Mark and his high -horse. Perhaps it would be best if he stayed away from the farm altogether.
Sometime later, after Justin had come home, Karen drove Nova to the Winchesters', and stayed for a chat with Evelyn. It was not till she was back in her own bedroom, changing into a clean dress for dinner, that she allowed Mark to engage the whole of her thoughts.
Elizabeth's bald announcement had stabbed deeply; the more so, perhaps, because, while half expecting it, she had desperately willed otherwise. Now, there was no evading the purpose implicit in his coolness this last week or so. Her companionship had palled and he was relinquishing his claim to it in what he considered the kindest way. She didn't blame him. All along, she had regarded their friendship as precarious, something to be grasped for as long as he proffered it and strengthened by every means in her power. It was just unfortunate that she knew too little about men in general and his sort in particular, to draw him into the deeper and more lasting relationship that she longed for.
ROY returned to Guaba mightily pleased with himself. Confidentially, he had learned that a surveyor might be calling in a few weeks' time to examine the new school. If it lined up with official requirements, there was every hope of the school being incorporated into the government education scheme.
"They were down on me like a load of bricks for wasting so much of my time on this corner of my province," he said blithely. "Which means that from now on I shall not be able to give you two girls much help. Still, you seem to have done marvellously without me, and anyway, my weekends will be free."
The formal opening of the school delighted all sixty of the guests. Colonel Williamson, in a tropical suit with a carnation in the buttonhole, his iron-grey hair smartly brushed back, made a short, amusing speech. Afterwards, he chatted with the farming folk and their children, and eventually worked his way round to where Karen sat perched on a school desk with her cousin.
"An achievement to be proud of," he said with a friendly smile and an embracing wave of his hand. "You and young Strasmore started a big thing,
for I'm quite certain the population will grow fast in these parts. There are three new families coming this way within the next month."
"Guaba will have to spread itself into a decent up-country town and provide us with a club," remarked Karen.
"Pity we can't start one on co-operative lines, like the school," put in Elizabeth. "Nairobi's too far for a weekend jaunt, and young people like Karen, Nova, Roy, and his friends have to stay at home or rely on invitations. They seldom have a chance to dance through the small hours."
The Colonel nodded comprehendingly. "A club in Guaba would return substantial dividends. I'd be tempted to start one myself if I were staying on indefinitely in Kenya."
"You're leaving?" they asked simultaneously.
"Yes, but I'm not sure when. My lease has five months to run. In that time, I'm hoping certain difficulties will have smoothed themselves out. Some friends of mine are coming out for a long weekend next Friday," he said. "I'd very much like you to spend the days with us, Karen. My boy would collect you each morning and I'd drive you home myself each night. Will you come?"
"Thank you. I'd love to."
ELIZABETH'S dinner party that evening, a comfortable, non-dress occasion and the largest upon which she had as yet embarked, was completely
successful. When the meal had ended, the guests streamed out into the fragrant darkness while the room was cleared and the gramophone set going. All the records were old, and many of them soughed like the wind, but the rhythm emerged triumphant.
Next day, Elizabeth yawned happily about her tasks. It had been an exciting, homely party; the first, she rather thought, of many more in the district.
Her cousin's function over, Karen's immediate problem was Charles Williamson's house-party. An eagerness to meet a new set of people was overawed by her anxiety about clothes, for she knew that Charles's guests would be of the leisured, sporting type who, if they owned farms at all, employed managers to run them.
As it turned out, the dinner with Charles and his friends on Friday evening was a small affair. Charles himself seemed uneasy and twice regretted that, as the party was incomplete, the safari he had scheduled for tomorrow would have to be abandoned, unless they'd care to go without him. Obviously, he couldn't be away when the last guest arrived. Two husbands and wives decided to make a car-load and drive into the bush below Grassa. The other three guests chose a lazy day pepped up with tennis.
It was these three whom Karen joined the following morning at about eleven. They played tennis on the cropped grass, lunched in the garden, played again, and drove several miles to bathe in a pool fringed with ferns and rock flowers. At about six, they dropped Karen at the farm to change for dinner.
As she slipped into her long blue dress, Karen hoped that during their absence Charles's final visitor had arrived. Strange for a man of his age and type to allow himself to be so put out.
"How are you making out with the social register?" quizzed Elizabeth
from the doorway. "Not so different from us working folk, are they?" "They're just ordinary," said Karen flippantly. "I like us better." "Roy's here."
"Roy?" Karen turned. "You mean there, in the living-room?" "Right here!" he sang out. "Hurry up."
"This house!" exclaimed Elizabeth. "No privacy anywhere. Are you coming, pet?"
Roy, conventionally attired for the evening, laughed and bowed to Karen. "Your escort, ma'am."
"You might have told me you were invited to Colonel Williamson's tonight" "Would it have heightened your anticipation if I had?"
"Naturally."
Comically, he beat his head. "Forgive me, dear heart, I did what I thought best."
"I still can't think why you two don't make a match of it," said Elizabeth plaintively. "You're good for each other, and there's nothing like marriage to extract the sting from past follies."
"Are you referring to Glenys as a past folly?" he queried.
"Who else?" she countered. "You've only to look at Karen to see that she hasn't one." Roy wouldn't notice the swift lowering of lids and the clench of slim ' fingers over the silver evening-bag. With exasperation, Elizabeth added, "Seven months in Kenya, and I don't believe she's even been kissed!"
"Oh, I say, that's a grave accusation!" cried Roy. "Defend yourself, Karen."
"Why should I?" she challenged lightly. "Far more fun to keep you guessing. Shall we go now?"
Charles met them at the foot of his veranda steps. His smile had lost the perfunctory politeness of yesterday and he' clasped Karen's arm as they went inside.
"Come into the lounge for a cocktail," he murmured. "You know everyone now. Inga Sanderfield is the
only newcomer today, and you and she are already friends."
Karen quelled an impulse to seek behind her for Roy's hand and hold on tight, as one might grab for support at an elder brother or a nice cousin. For a minute, the room seemed crowded. Then Inga separated from the rest, tall, superbly beautiful in sea-green, her head, with its circlet of wheaten braids, held high.
"Good evening, Miss Ainsley . . . Mr. Strasmore. Appropriately you are come together. They look sweet as a couple, do they not, Mark?"
Karen shivered. She saw Mark straighten from a lounging position
against the wall and come forward. "Good evening," she said, before the coolness in his appraisal could hurt with words. "I'd like that cocktail, Charles."
LATER, when her head had ceased to buzz, Karen considered that she , slid passably well out of a situation fraught with unpleasantness,
though she could still tremble at the faint antagonism in Mark's smile and the supercilious tilt to Inga's chin. After dinner, she'd make an opportunity to tell Charles that tomorrow, Sunday, she must help Elizabeth in the dairy.
Luckily, at table Karen was placed between Roy and a man whom she had partnered earlier at tennis. Mark, a little way down on the same side, she could have ignored if only her heart hadn't played tricks when his sardonic laugh filled a pause.
In the general move, she escaped outside, but Charles's garden, packed with trees and climbers, was not the kind one dare explore in billowing tulle. She did find a bench away from the lights and sank into it with a little sigh. Close to her hair, cicadas chirped and leaves whispered. The cool sweet air laid beneficent fingers on her brow, easing the ache of bewilderment and loss. 'One can't lose something one has never possessed,' she upbraided herself sternly. 'This was inevitable and you must have known it from the beginning. Take hold of yourself, now.'
By the time Roy came out to find her, a modicum of courage had oozed back into her veins. "I told them you'd play bridge," he said. "It was that or gossip."
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