by Anne Hampson
‘Thank you, Kane.’
‘Can’t you think of anything else to say?’ he laughed.
‘There are times,’ she said, ‘when you can’t think of eloquent things to say.’ She felt so depressed now that she scarcely cared if he knew.
‘There’s a vast division between eloquence and repetition.’
‘I don’t feel like talking, Kane.’ She raised her eyes to his, missed a step and fell against him. ‘I—I don’t feel very well…’ This was sheer cowardice. She must stay, must be there to offer him her good wishes. After all, he had been her friend almost from the time she arrived here. He had saved her life and thought nothing of it; he had stocked the garden she was making; he had spoken for her with Mr Cookson, making sure she was given the job… Lena’s thoughts trailed off, but took another line almost immediately. Why should Kane have helped her so much with the garden? Why had he lent her the pony? In fact, why had he done anything for her at all?
‘You don’t feel well? Lena—this is the third time I’ve asked you that question!’ He stopped, and held her from him, his keen eyes making a thorough examination of her face.
‘Oh, is it?’ she faltered. ‘I’m so sorry, Kane, I’m afraid I was miles away.’
‘Are you unwell?’ he asked even yet again.
‘No—er…’
‘You’re certainly not too happy?’
‘I expect it’s the idea of going home. You always feel a little down when a holiday’s coming to an end.’
He said nothing, but before she knew what his intentions were she was outside, in the splendour of his lovely garden, with the scent of flowers assailing her nostrils.
‘I have something to ask you,’ he said when she would have spoken. ‘But we’ll move away from the lights and the noise.’ There was a sort of new resolution about him, an air of content, as if he were viewing a decision judiciously made.
‘I don’t understand,’ she began. ‘Is it important?’
‘Very important.’
‘Oh,’ she murmured, because there was nothing else she could think of to say.
‘It’s the most important question I shall ask in the whole of my life.’ He was increasing his pace. Breathlessly she trotted along at his side. And then he stopped suddenly, and looked down into her lovely face. ‘Have you no idea what the question is?’ he asked in tones so tender that her heart actually leapt right up into her throat. ‘If you haven’t my love, then you’re ridiculously obtuse.’
‘My love…’ She stared into his eyes as one fascinated. ‘You said—you said—’ The rest was smothered by his kiss as, having taken her into his arms even while she was stammering out her words, he bent his head, to seek and find her lips.
‘My dear little love,’ he murmured presently, his lips close to her cheek. ‘You reciprocate divinely.’
She blushed enchantingly at his words, her mind still dazed, and yet she was thinking of the questions she had only recently been asking herself, as she danced close to Kane, savouring the feel of his arms about her. She had wondered why he should have taken such an interest in her, why he had done so much for her. And now so many other incidents passed, one after another, through her mind. Those times when she had sensed a struggle within him, when he had been so concerned that she should not have the children… oh, there was a whole string of pointers—if only she had been quick enough to have seen them.
‘You didn’t want to fall in love with me, did you?’ she just had to say when, a long while later, they were sitting close together by the stream, listening to the clear crystal water cascading over the rocks.
‘I didn’t want to fall in love with anybody,’ he was honest enough to admit, ‘but with you, my dearest, I was fighting a losing battle from the start.’
‘Magda,’ she murmured. ‘Everyone believed you’d marry her—’ She stopped, for a fleeting moment experiencing the agony she had known on hearing Rex say that the announcement of Kane’s engagement to Magda would probably be made tonight.
‘Magda,’ he said, and there was nothing in his voice but indifference, ‘never meant anything to me at all. She’s good company, but not the kind of girl for me. I love nature and natural things. I happen to love a girl who is natural, a girl who doesn’t know the meaning of the word affectation.’ Because he knew she would be embarrassed by this flattery he drew her close and kissed her tenderly on the lips. ‘I expect it was your love of nature which attracted me in the first place. You see, my darling, I hadn’t ever met anyone like you before.’ He sounded almost humble, she thought, and wondered where was the austerity, the arrogance which June had so often mentioned. It was still there, and always would be. It was a part of him… but a part which she herself would rarely see. ‘Do you remember my saying that a person’s character shapes his or her destiny?’
‘Yes, I remember.’ Lena leant away, and looked inquiringly at him, her eyes and her hair and her face glowing in the moonlight. ‘I didn’t know what you meant.’
‘I meant that, as your character is what others like or dislike, it either repels or attracts. In my case it attracted.’
‘I remember wondering if you were telling me you liked me,’ she said with a shy smile. ‘I see now that you were.’
Kane nodded his head.
‘And I must have known then that I was well on my way to falling in love with you, simply because the attraction I spoke of was in fact going to shape your destiny.’
‘Because I was to become your wife?’
‘Of course,’ with a return of that arrogance she knew so well. However, the next moment he was asking her, in the most tender tone he knew, if she would marry him.
‘I can’t believe it,’ she said, drawing a deep breath. ‘You see, Kane, I was expecting you to announce your engagement to Magda tonight.’
‘You—what!’ Kane had been about to draw her close again, but instead he pulled away, staring at her in the moonlight, amazement looking out from his eyes. ‘Where on earth did you get an idea like that?’
‘It was a rumour that was going round.’
‘Rubbish! How could it?’
Lena explained what Rex had said. She also mentioned the bracelet and earrings, this latter coming out involuntarily, as if it just had to be said.
Again amazement looked out of Kane’s eyes.
‘You mean—that people believed I’d actually made Magda a gift of that jewellery?’ And, when Lena nodded, ‘She had sent it to Johannesburg to be cleaned, and to have some minor repairs done to it. As I was going there she asked if I’d pick it up. Magda is the very last girl I’d buy jewellery for,’ he added grimly.
‘You only collected it for her?’ Lena could not help recalling the heartache that jewellery had caused her. For it seemed so feasible that, if Kane had bought it for her, then he must be seriously considering marrying her. ‘I wonder how a rumour like that got around?’
‘It’s not difficult to guess at its origin,’ was Kane’s contemptuous reply, and as Lena knew that he was referring to Magda herself she said nothing. She was not interested in the girl any more. And yet, after a sweet and tender interlude during which Kane’s passionate kisses left her gasping for breath, she did bring up the girl’s name again, asking if, on that occasion when Magda had been arguing with Lena over the date on which the book was supposed to have arrived, Kane had come to her, Lena, in order to comfort her.
‘I felt that you believed me, even though Mr Cookson didn’t,’ she added, nestling close to his breast.
‘I knew at once that you were speaking the truth,’ he returned without hesitation. ‘Your frank and honest expression was more than enough to convince me of who was in the wrong. Yes, my love, I did come to comfort you, and I should have known then that my battle was hopelessly lost—just as I should have known it that day when we were at the waterfall. I can’t think now how I managed to resist taking you in my arms.’
‘I felt there was something,’ she murmured, still close to his breast. But after a whil
e Kane held her from him; she saw the light of tender amusement that lit his dark grey eyes.
‘I’d enjoyed my bachelor state so long that I naturally fought to retain it,’ he admitted ruefully. ‘Marriage had no appeal for me… not until you came, my beloved. But when you did appear, it was the beginning of the end for me.’ Gently he brought her to him again, seeking her lips and taking them possessively. Breathless when at last she was released, she looked lovingly into his eyes and said, a tremor of emotion in her voice,
‘I was so miserable, Kane, because I had discovered that I loved you, and I thought I had no chance. But I see now that I ought to have realized the significance of all those things you did for me.’
‘I’m sorry, my darling, if I made you unhappy by my tardiness. And even now, I wonder if I’d still be holding on to my freedom if it hadn’t been for the fact of your determination to leave here.’
She looked up at him.
‘You mean—it was owing to my dismissal that you made up your mind?’
He nodded his head.
‘I knew I couldn’t let you go.’ He paused a moment and she wondered what he was thinking about. She was soon to know, for he told her that he had seen Mr Cookson and after learning of the circumstances leading to her dismissal had known instantly that Magda had been responsible for bringing it about. ‘She defeated herself,’ he went on with a grim note to his voice. ‘It would appear that she would have liked to marry me; it was also a fact that she was jealous of you. She determined to bring about your dismissal, concluding that you would then be forced to leave Africa. But it was the fact that you were intending to leave that brought me to my senses.’
So Magda’s scheming had rebounded upon herself, mused Lena, and because she was only human—and all woman besides—she could not help feeling rather exultant at the vision of Magda’s face when she learned that Kane was going to marry the girl she had so detested. Kane was talking again, admitting that he had begun to suspect that Lena was falling in love with him and, because of his determination to fight shy of marriage, he had given Magda rather more of his attention than he otherwise would have done. Hence the rumour which had caused Lena so much heartache.
‘I suppose I was hoping you would find someone else,’ he confessed ruefully. ‘Rex, for instance.’
She could not help saying,
‘You were sarcastic about Rex’s attention on a couple of occasions.’
‘I was jealous of him. You know darned well I was!’ ‘I do now, but I didn’t at the time.’
‘Then you were a blind little idiot!’ But his eyes were tenderer than his tone and within seconds she was drawn closely into his strong arms, and they stayed together like this, listening to the night sounds of the forest and the veld. Above the rhythm of the stream was the incessant whirr of the cicadas; in the distance there was the hollow echo of a night-bird, and from the direction of the village there drifted the primeval sound of a drum beat. ‘My dearest love,’ murmured Kane at last, ‘we must return to our guests.’
‘Our guests…’ Lena turned in his arms, a deep sigh of contentment escaping her. ‘That sounds wonderful, Kane.’
‘I shall announce our engagement as soon as we get in,’ he told her decisively. ‘Can you imagine just what a sensation we’re about to cause, my love?’ he added with a laugh.
She nodded, thinking of Jennifer, who was in there now, dancing. Earlier she had looked at the shining Magda and frowningly confessed to Lena that she did not care whom her cousin married so long as it was not the girl everyone expected him to marry.
‘I must admit,’ Lena was saying as she and Kane strolled, hand in hand, back to the shed, ‘that I’ll be glad when the actual announcement’s over and done with.’
‘You’re not scared?’ he protested. ‘It’ll be a one-minute wonder, but after that everyone will be telling me what a lucky man I am.’
It was to transpire that these confident predictions were correct. It was also to transpire that Magda, when at last she was able to believe her ears, was immediately to collect her coat and leave the party, fury and frustration raging deep within her. However, the couple outside in the garden did not know this yet as, strolling hand in hand, their minds totally occupied with each other and the love they were to share, they stopped now and then to kiss, and to murmur words of endearment to one another, while all around them was the heady perfume of a myriad exotic flowers while, beyond these lovely gardens, there lay the silent bushveld, spreading in hushed and mystic silence towards the dark and distant eminence of the mountains.