The usual temporary remedies such as filling the hole with a shred of cotton-wool damped with a spot of whisky were hopeless with Keith. In pain he could be as mulish a little brigand as you'd find! He wouldn't even swallow half a crushed aspirin disguised in a mountain of jam.
He pulled away from the arm she had put round him. "If Mummy was here, she'd know what to do," he gulped. "She wouldn't let my tooth hurt and hurt."
"I'm not going to, either," Karen said, firmly covering him with a blanket. "Now try to be quiet while I find something to put you right." She went straight into the living-room and got out notepaper and envelope. She had recalled that most of little Molly Winchester's front teeth were missing at the early age of four, and guessed that Evelyn had experienced many an evening like her present one with Keith.
So she scribbled: "Keith is frantic with toothache. Have you anything that might help? I'd be so grateful."
Then she crossed to the french window and, drawing back the curtain, looked out. There was Hanim, gazing into the night. She opened the door. "Hanim!"
He came swiftly. "Memsahib?"
"Do you know the Winchesters' shamba, about three miles up the road?" "Yes, memsahib."
"I want you to go there and give Mrs. Winchester this note." "Bwana makubwa say not to leave this shamba till daybreak."
"You must, Hanim. The little boy is in pain."
Immediately the dark head bent. "Pardon, memsahib. I will be quick."
She heard him gallop away over the new road, and then slipped back to Keith's room. The boy was sprawled across his pillow, whimpering miserably. This time he did not despise the arm Karen offered, nor did he reject the handkerchief with which she dabbed at his eyes. "I've sent for something to make it better," she comforted him. "Hanim won't be long."
Keith shuddered on a sob and raised his flushed, tear-stained face. "Did Hanim hear me cry?"
"No, I'm sure he didn't," she prevaricated. "Not that it would matter if he did. Toothache's nasty enough to make anyone cry."
"Hanim wouldn't cry."
"Perhaps not, but Hanim's a stoic."
"What's a stoic?" Keith mumbled unhappily.
Karen, her glance on her wrist-watch, put all she knew into her reply, embroidering to add interest, and Keith listened, punctuating with sniffs and dry sobs till she had finished, when he began to groan again. With overwhelming relief Karen heard the slam of a car door. Evelyn had come herself, thank heaven; that was more than she'd dared hope. She rose from the bed and flew into the living-room.
The visitor was Mark .. .
"Hallo!" said Mark, who was fishing things out of his pockets. "How long has Keith been making that row?"
"About half an hour," Karen answered breathlessly. How mad that her heart should sing and her knees tremble. "I sent Hanim over to the Winchesters."
"I'd told him to come to me if there should be any trouble. Sounds as though that tooth is giving the poor kid real bother. D'you want to be in on the operation?"
"What are you going to do?"
"Pull it out, probably. It's certain he can't go on suffering and I expect it's a first tooth. I'll take the responsibility," he finished reassuringly.
His tone cooled her. She followed him into the small bedroom. Keith's straw-coloured head emerged from the tumbled bedclothes like a dejected puppy's.
Miraculously, Hanim appeared from the kitchen with a pan each of cold and hot water. Karen could see that master and servant had worked together in similar circumstances many times. They shared a like expression: purposeful, half-smiling. It almost vexed Karen the way Keith opened his mouth at Mark's first -command and didn't close it more than half an inch when the forceps were lifted from a bowl of disinfectant.
But it was to Karen that he turned for solace when the deed was done.
She held him till the bleeding had stopped, then bathed his face and
gave him a warm drink.. When she bade him a second good night and
took the lamp, the round face on the pillow offered a crooked smile. "Won't Mums be surprised! Shall we write it in a letter?"
"It'll be much more effective if you give her a wide smile the minute she's back," Karen assured him.
MARK was in the living-room, apparently doing nothing. Karen set down the lamp. "Can I get you a drink?" she asked formally. "No, thanks. Why are you here alone?"
"Nova's gone to the club at Guaba. I persuaded her as Hanim was here. I—never did thank you for sending Hanim. He is the sort of person one can respect, and like."
The arrogant nose twitched. "He likes you, too. He still calls you my little sister, which, come to think of it, is about the highest tribute he'd pay to any woman!" As he looked across at her, eyes gleaming with laughter, the lamplight glanced over his cheekbones, accentuating their leanness. "Is Keith settled?"
"He'll go off to sleep now."
"You're not looking too chipper yourself."
"It's only tiredness. I'm not yet broken in to dairy work."
"I can see that." He came closer, picked up her right hand and examined the wrist. "Badly swollen. Sure you haven't damaged it?"
His touch burned. Hastily, she withdrew her hand and plunged it into her pocket. "Elizabeth warned me. She had the same trouble years ago." "Doesn't Miss Lawson help?"
"She will tomorrow, as it's Sunday. There are only three days next week before Elizabeth comes back."
"What time do you start in the dairy?"
"About nine."
An instant's pause, then he said noncommittally, "I'm hung up while my boys are on the roads. If you like, I'll drop in three mornings next week and give you some help."
Karen murmured her thanks. The cautious little glow within her flared suddenly into a bright fire.
"Come and sit down," he said, himself taking to the arm of a chair near her. He had a companionable air. "Tell me what you like best about Kenya."
If only she dared answer foolishly in a monosyllable! Safer to assume that he alluded only to the colony, not to its people. "No one thing. The country as a whole has tremendous appeal for most of us."
"Do you enjoy farming?"
"Yes, but it's not in my bones, as it seems to be in Elizabeth's. I shouldn't care to have to do it for the rest of my life."
"What would you like to do for the rest of your life?"
Again she daren't tell him. "I'm not ambitious—or much different from other women."
"A bungalow, a garden and children to look after?" he queried sardonically.
`Y es, yes,' cried her heart, 'so long as it was your bungalow, your garden, and—' Quietly, she answered, "Don't tease, Mark."
"I'm not teasing," he said, but took it no further. Instead he added, "I'm staying till Keith is sound asleep."
She leaned back and half-closed her eyes. Sweet and spiced with danger were these precious minutes-alone with Mark.
They sprang alert simultaneously to the crunch of a car on the road, and laughing voices. In one lithe movement, Mark was up and at the door. "Hanim! Tell them to wait out there. I'm coming."
"Already the memsahib is here, bwana."
Mark muttered something and turned back. "I had visitors down at the bridge when Hanim came, and they've followed me here." As the french door was pushed wide, he spoke more loudly, "Here's your good friend Charles Williamson—and Inga."
"The house is very quiet," remarked Inga Sanderfield, pausing just inside the door. "What happened to the toothache?"
"The toothache is no more," Mark answered. "I played bogy man with forceps and Cousin Karen lent gentle hands and soft sympathy, with the result that the child now sleeps."
"And everyone is happy?" Inga's displeasure smouldered faintly in the depths of her eyes, but the smile she turned upon Karen scintillated. Then her thick gold brows rose and she laughed with frankness calculated to disarm. "I understand. You were lonely, and with good reason. It was mean of the education officer to drive out with Miss Lawson this evening. That is what I think when I see the
m together."
For a moment Karen was taut. How did one cope with such veiled accusations when convention demanded that claws remain sheathed and the smile ever-ready?
Charles broke in, "You look strained, Karen. We others shouldn't have bothered you. You are working hard and children can be very wearing."
"Both of them conditions about which you can know little, Charles," Inga took him up, with a hint of malice. "Our friends are waiting in the car, Mark."
He was filling his pockets with the things which he had dropped on the table as he came in. "We'd better go back to your place, Charles."
Singly, they said good night to Karen. Charles warmly, Inga with an arrogant inclination of her head, and Mark briefly.
After they had gone, Karen's quickened pulses began to settle, but she did not move till Nova came in, her usual stilted smile softened by a careful glimmer of happiness.
NEXT morning, Keith cheerfully displayed the new gap in his mouth to kitchen-boy and herdsman. Nova, brisk and normal, helped in the dairy
and prepared a cold lunch. In the afternoon, Charles came over and took tea
with them on the veranda. Almost at once he apologised for last night's
intrusion. "Inga has come down this weekend with two married friends," he explained. "I'd invited Mark over for dinner, and afterwards, as there was a moon, we all drove down to look at the bridge. We were taking a drink with Mark when Hanim appeared. After Mark had left, we hung on for a while till Inga grew restless and asked me to bring her here."
"It didn't matter," murmured Karen. "I ought to have known how to handle Keith alone."
Charles gave her one of his kind, protective smiles and, after admiring the vacant gum, asked Keith how he liked school. Karen, reclining in her deckchair, watched the man and idly wondered. Difficult to believe that he had built for himself the reputation of philanderer. His behaviour to herself had always been impeccably charming. "What are your visitors doing this afternoon?" she asked.
"Resting, ready for tonight. As a matter of fact, I'd very much like you to join us this evening. We're taking a picnic up-river in a couple of canoes. Have you ever been on a moonlight picnic?"
She shook her head. "No, but I think I'd better wait till Keith's parents are back, thank you, Charles." She did not ask if Mark were going. No need; Inga would see to that. African moonlight on the river. Thank heaven Charles and ethers would be there.
When Charles got up to go, he bent over her. "Stay there. The young man will see me off. So glad to see the pink back in your cheeks."
Nova, who had hardly conversed at all with Charles, now raised her feet to the chair he had left, and stared after him as he wound down the path to his car. "That man has changed. Before I left for Cape Town he was one of the bad lads of Nairobi. In those days he was wealthy, but he drank and gambled his money away. He was always likable, though, and would go miles out of his way to do a kindness. I feel rather sorry for him."
"I'm sure there's no need."
"He seems to have changed lately. Evelyn Winchester says his present income is small, and he has to choose between marrying money, if he can find some, and picking a woman to whom money is not everything. I shouldn't be surprised," she added casually, "if he has you lined up in the second category."
"That's absurd. He must be nearly fifty."
"You're judging by his grey hairs. He can't be more than forty-four." Nova paused. "One might do worse. He has a mature charm. I wouldn't go down at all with his type, but you're the forgiving sort who'd never remind him of his past misdeeds."
"You're not advising me to join my life with one of the sex you despise, are you?" Karen inquired, smiling pointedly.
Nova took an interest in the cannas that reared crimson trumpets above the veranda wall. "Life's odd," she said. "It knocks you down with
one hand and offers balm with the other. The trouble is that once you've been let down, you're wary."
"Looked at another way," said Karen, "if you're down, you've nothing to lose, and you might gain a lot by testing the balm."
"You're a sport, Karen. I shall always be glad I met you."
For the rest of the day, Karen read a book Charles had brought, and tried to keep from wondering whether Mark would come over tomorrow morning, as he had suggested. in fact, he arrived just before nine, said "Good morning," in businesslike tones, and asked after Keith, who had gone to school. "Now to the dairy," he said. "Will you sit and direct operations?"
An hour or so later, he washed his hands and pulled on his jacket.
"I'm going to make some coffee," she said. "Will you stay for a cup, or some other drink?"
"Not today, thanks," he answered, looking away towards the trees. "I'll be along at the same time tomorrow. So long." He slipped into his car and drove off, and Karen was left leaning against a veranda post, baffled and hurt, and wishing she had told him to stay away if he considered her a nuisance.
On Tuesday it was the same. "Any use offering you a drink?"
"Too early, thanks. Same time tomorrow." And he was striding down to the gate.
In the afternoon, John Winchester came to the farm and Karen thanked him for a belated offer of help. "We've got through very well and there's only one more day."
"Nova told us you were managing without trouble or I'd have ridden up before."
Karen smiled and reassured him. Having satisfied his conscience, John climbed back into the saddle and cantered home.
Keith, his feet set wide, gazed up into Karen's face. "Is it nearly teatime?"
"Yes. Hungry?"
"A bit. Isn't there time for me to go to the bridge?"
She shook her head. "It won't have changed much since yesterday."
Keith kicked a stone. "I heard Mark tell Colonel Williamson that he'll be glad to finish with this district. Mark's not half so nice and exciting now as when he first came," he said broodingly. "The way he snaps sometimes you'd think everything had gone wrong with the bridge, instead of right."
"We all have off days."
With childish inconsequence, Keith sighed blissfully. "This time tomorrow, I may have my tools. Mums is sure to bring me some fine smooth wood to use—she always thinks of things like that. When's your birthday, Karen?"
"In a couple of months."
"I'll make you a work-box," he promised.
THE following morning, Karen met Mark in the garden. "There's nothing
to do in the dairy today. About half an hour ago, the van collected our milk and cream for the hospital at Kisuri. I wasn't aware it was our turn or I'd have told you yesterday and saved you the journey."
For a second he was silent. Then, "In that case, I'll take the cup of coffee you've been offering each day. I breakfasted at five this morning."
"Of course." She turned into the house and he followed. Leaving him in the living-room, she passed through to the kitchen and prepared a tray. Chicken sandwiches, a dish of thickly buttered spice buns and coffee.
Mark drained his first cupful in one go. "I needed that. We were firefighting half the night. One of the boys built a fire inside his hut and razed eight others."
While he ate a little, she flipped over the leaves of a magazine. He drank a third cup of coffee, then stretched his legs out before him, his glance distant and speculative.
"I want you to know that I'm deeply grateful for all that you've done for me since Saturday," she said.
A trace of the old mockery glinted underneath his smile. "Keith's almost as much my relative as yours."
"I wasn't referring only to what you did for Keith. My wrist is much easier for the rest."
"I'd noticed that. How are you doing at the school these days?"
"It's flourishing. Nova's an excellent teacher and she has the confidence of the parents. We were awfully lucky to get her."
His regard was steady and tantalising. "Why do you haul in someone else when I ask you a personal question? I'm not interested in the redoubtable Miss Lawson."
Karen looked at her fingers rustling the glossy pages. "You're not so desperately interested in the school, either, are you?"
"You mean because I haven't been down there since before the opening?" His shoulders lifted. "Hardly the place for a bachelor, is it?"
"You might at least have attended the opening. In spite of your principles the building and furnishing were three-parts your work." She lifted her head and met his glance. "It was odd, the way you dropped . . . everything so suddenly."
"I explained to Elizabeth that I was working away at the time."
"If you'd wanted to, you'd have come, wherever you happened to be," she stated simply.
"Were you hurt?"
"Most of us expected you to be there."
"Were you hurt?" he repeated, his tone unbearably soft.
Her lids flickered. "A little, but disappointments are part of life. Since then, I believe I understand you better."
"Oh, really? How, in my absence, have I revealed myself?"
He was laughing at her and she took refuge in a responsive smile and a shake of the head. "I'm not begging for jeers," she retorted.
"What if I promise not to jeer?"
"You can't help scoffing when you're in the mood."
To put an end to his probing of the topic, she stood up to replace the sugar-bowl and cups on the tray. She felt him regarding her, his expression shrewd yet enigmatic and, when Jimmy had come in and gone again, he still did not move. A delicious uneasiness settled over Karen. She had a conviction that on her sagacious handling of the next few minutes depended her whole future. Unfortunately, sagacity had deserted her.
The commonplace nature of his next remark brought her an absurd relief. "Do you miss the London entertainments?"
"No; I thought I should, but here there is so much outdoor amusement that evenings indoors consist of a sleepy half-hour with a book after dinner and then to bed." She added, "Not always, of course, but five evenings out of seven."
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