Clare glanced round her. Plenty of books, a strong tang of cigarette smoke, woven carpets of grass, and worn chairs. Brass ornaments added a bit of colour, but they needed polishing. Whisky and soda, gin and lime, stood with glasses on a bamboo table.
“I’m sure we’ll be more than comfortable,” she smiled at Don. “Thank you for letting us stay here.”
The week that followed turned out to be a fairly enjoyable one. Don had hoarded a box of crackers for the festivities, and after they had pulled them they sat about in fancy paper hats, drinking and yarning, mostly about England. Don had a gramophone and a batch of fairly new records, and Clare danced one by one with the men of Kalai station while Ross looked on lazily. If he remembered the last time she had danced with Don, and his crackling anger, it wasn’t showing in his grey eyes. They dwelt on her in Don’s arms quite imperturbably. “Yes,” she heard him say to Earle, “Clare has kept remarkably fit out here. A combination of luck, will-power, and my insistence that she never neglect her health.”
As though he spoke about a filly, she thought tartly, and let Don hold her a little closer to his white jacket.
“I’ve thought about you a lot since we met, Clare,” he murmured near her ear. “Have you thought about me?”
“In what way?” she asked coolly. “I’m a married woman, Don.”
“So you are,” he sighed. “Why is it that all the nice girls get snatched from under my nose?”
“How often has that happened?” she laughed. “I bet you’ve had your share of conquests.”
“None of them count, Clare. You out-dazzle them all.”
“What nonsense,” she scoffed. “When men are stuck away for months on end in the bush, anything in a skirt looks good to them.”
“So sweet-looking, so tough-talking.” Don held her a little away from him so he could look into her eyes. “Picking up Brennan’s approach to life, Clare?”
“Wouldn’t it be natural?” she asked. “Many women don the moods and attitudes that suit best the temperaments of their men. I’m no exception.”
“You’re Clare the shining one,” Don said firmly. “You’re too good for the guy.”
“He’s tough, I know that, but I’ve seen sides to him that few other people have seen,” she quickly defended Ross. “The iron doesn’t go all the way through.”
Noel Brady tapped Don on the shoulder. “You’ve had your share of Mrs. Brennan,” he said. “My ration now.”
Clare wasn’t sorry when the evening was over. An unlimited supply of male admiration had grown cloying in the end, and Ross had not claimed her for a single dance. She undressed tiredly, and lay sleepless a long time under her netting. The next morning she rode with Ross as far as Kalai lake, wide and bluer than the sky and steeply edged with mangrove trees and grass-covered precipices from which one could gaze down into indigo depths as bottomless as eternity. A couple of small brown fishing boats sat squarely upon the barely moving water, the figures in them still as stone. The sun pressed down like a fiery lid, branding the blue waters with circles of molten gold.
Clare lay curled in the shade of a tree, watching the sinuous writhings of a snake at the edge of the lake twenty feet below. The snake’s skin was a translucent blue-green, its belly a streak of silver. It slid along a smooth rock, coiled and went to sleep.
A parrot screeched in the branches above and was answered by another some yards away. A monkey chattered close to her ear, and she rolled over quickly to find Ross’s mocking face near her own.
She lay quite still and silent, her cheek against her arm. He pulled a handful of short grass and showered it over her head. Without smiling, she shook it off.
“I’m glad we’re going home tomorrow,” she said.
“Had enough of the womanless males of Kalai?” he asked. “Has it been trying?”
“They ... do rather cluster like moths round a candle,” she muttered.
“Proves you haven’t lost your looks,” he mocked.
“Any woman would have the same effect,” she rejoined.
“Probably true,” he agreed carelessly.
She turned her head away from him and pressed her eyes against her arm, shutting out his sardonic, uncaring face. A pin-point of pain burst and flooded her body, causing her heart to thud against the earth. Her throat was drawn too tight for speech, then she heard him strike a match and caught the odour of his cigarette. Parrots squawked again and whirred in the branches above.
The pain dimmed. Shaping her lips into a smile, she twisted on to her back and asked for a cigarette. He lit one and put it between her lips from his. Their smoke intermingled as it drifted upwards in the still air.
Presently she asked: “Are you going down to look at the rubber before we go back to England?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I thought you might have decided to go while the Pryces are with us. They’ll stay several weeks this time.”
“You want me out of the way, eh?” His cigarette jerked in his mouth as he spoke. He tapped his breast pocket , and felt inside, then drew out a folded sheet of notepaper. “This is one of the letters that came from head office with the last mail. I was going to wait till we were back at Bula before telling you about it. The fact is, Clare, they’re not sending out my successor until March, and they want me to stay on until the end of June. It’s all here in the letter, if you’d care to read it.”
She shook her head. “This means we’ve got to stay a further three months, and then travel in the rains,” she said.
He nodded. “How do you feel about it?”
“My brain has become so muddled,” she shrugged, hardly knowing in this moment what she did feel. She only knew that she sensed something in his manner that caused her apprehension.
He slipped the letter back into his pocket. “There are several things we have to weigh up,” he said. “Your health, for instance. You know as well as I do that you’re living on your final reserves. You could have lasted till the end of March because your mind was built up for it, but I don’t know that I’m willing to let you stay a further three months.”
“There’s not much wrong with me ... physically.”
“Perhaps I’m afraid of mental strain.”
“But, Ross—”
“The life out here has been a strain Clare.” As he spoke he leaned down and looked directly into her eyes. “Can you deny it? Can you say that now you can’t bear the deeper sort of books, and that anything but the lightest music tears you to pieces? You’re cussed obstinate, Clare, like me, but admit that living together at Bula has become close to unbearable.”
“Is that why you brought me to Kalai?” she breathed. “You needed a break from being with me exclusively?”
“We both needed a break, honey.” He sat back and his face had that hard, set look.
Her breath came unevenly. “You really want me to go ... this time, don’t you, Ross?”
He inclined his head and stared down into the hot blue waters of the lake.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“ALL right, Ross, I’ll go home in March.” Clare heard her own voice like an echo in a shell. “I don’t want to overstay my welcome at Bula.”
She was watching him through her lashes and caught the sharp glance he shot at her. For a wild moment she toyed with the idea of complete frankness, then knew he would receive it with a laugh, make her look an emotional fool. “I don’t think anything ever tore you to pieces,” she said, and took a deep pull at her cigarette.
“How d’you suppose I’d do my work if I allowed mere emotionalism to use up my nervous energy?” he asked, and there was no vestige of expression in his face. “I will admit, however, that before the piano crocked up my taste for music was coming near to matching yours. I can understand you weeping a little over that record of the Hassan serenade.”
Her breath came unevenly. “Then ... you do know a little how I feel?”
“Yes, but I don’t approve.” He sent a stream of cigarette smoke into t
he air. “Try to take yourself less seriously, Clare. You’ve been such a game kid. Pity to spoil it.”
Her throat quivered. She even managed to return his smile. A wave of soft air rippled her dress and fanned across her cheek.
“You stay till June, then?” she said brightly.
“Of course. There’s the question of the rubber trees—this new man will have to be taken down there. For me to make two journeys would be pointless. The Pryces will be gone by the time he and I get round to the rubber trees, which means that you will have to go with us—”
“I?” she exclaimed, her heart jolting. “Then you’ll be going before the end of March?”
“Yes, I can’t leave it much longer. It’s one of the lousiest spots in West Africa, and we ought to spend longer on it than I did last season—there’ll be a lot to do. I don’t know how three of us are going to manage in that run-down shed.”
“I could stay at Bula, as I did before,” she said, though she longed to make that awful trip with him.
He ran a finger along the curve of her arm. “No, I can’t allow that again.”
“It wasn’t too bad. I got along all right.” With a slow, casual movement she twined her fingers among his.
“You were peaked-looking and miserable, and I’d scamped the work to get back.”
And Don Carter had happened along while she was alone!
“I’m much more friendly with the bush now,” she reminded him.
“That makes no difference. I won’t leave you alone there again.”
As though absently, she ran a thumb over the crisp hairs across the back of his hand. “We brought a tent from England, remember.”
“So we did. It must be examined and if necessary repaired.” He gave a short sigh that contrasted oddly with his slightly mocking smile. “You do understand why March is the limit, don’t you, Clare?”
“I understand perfectly.” She released his hand very casually. “Our contract expires in March, and with your methodical mind you hate not to conclude business right on the dot. I hope, Ross, that my stay here yielded dividends of some sort?”
Her mouth was parted in her gayest smile, but her eyes were darker and deeper than the lake below this ridge where she sat with Ross. She skimmed her cigarette butt over the ledge, and it dropped out of sight. “You don’t want to go back to England, do you, Ross?” she said.
“I could face another five years of this with equanimity,” he agreed.
“Yet you talked of taking a post in Cape Town?” Her eyes dwelt on his face that had such an eagle-like quality, setting him apart from other men. “Eagles fly alone,” she thought, and knew it to be true.
“Yes, I could go to the Cape and sit at a desk and dictate letters for most of the day,” he said sardonically.
“It doesn’t sound like you, Ross.”
“It isn’t. The chief has been dangling this job before my nose like a carrot to a donkey, but I’d prefer a plantation of my own somewhere where the climate is reasonably good. The devil of it is, it takes so much capital to get started.”
“Even if you began in a small way?”
“It would have to be a very small way, a comedown from Bula. I’ve thought about this a lot,” he continued as though talking to himself. “If I took that job at the Cape and stuck it for three years, I should save a good bit if I really tried. Adding it to what I’ve already put by, I could branch out on my own.”
Clare sat listening in a state of blissful torment to his plans for the future. She thought: “We’re closer at this moment than we’ve ever been. He’s never unburdened himself like this before ... to anyone.”
“When you sink every bit of cash into a venture of that sort,” he was saying, “you intend staying more or less for keeps. You buy land that’s fairly near a town and build a storied house to which you can ask people without embarrassment.”
She thought:' “The loneliness has to be combated now and again, and he’s independent of women most of the time....”
“I’m not sorry to have to stay on at Bula a further three months. Things should have taken some sort of shape by June,” he added.
“Everything there looks pretty good to me, she said. “You’ve done wonders.”
“I’ll miss your morale boosting after March,” he commented, a wry grin slashing the skin of his cheek. A knife in the ribs which she took equably.
“Don’t look like that, honey.” He bent and landed a kiss on her nose. “I’ll notice it when I no longer see you about the bungalow. I’ve grown used to seeing you across the table to me when I come in for meals, fresh and sweet and most times smiling. But ... well, we made a bargain, didn’t we? I think it wiser to stick to it.”
“Whatever happens?” she murmured. “Even if we finished by liking each other so much that parting was ... hell?”
“A bargain’s a bargain.” His nose jutted, his chin was hard and firm. “I shan’t change my mind, Clare.”
“You sound awfully ... hard,” she said thinly. “Full of cold reason, but I suppose this savage climate does that to men ... and women.”
“Given time it does,” he agreed harshly. “While its an adventure, okay. But for life ... you’ve got to be hard to take it.”
And loved,” she thought wistfully. “Loved and wanted beyond cold reason.”
“I see now that you and I had to come together,” she said, gazing down into the shimmering lake. “My backbone needed the stiffening of your arrogance and cynicism and ruthlessness. Whatever turns up in my life when ... we’re through, I shall be tougher and less emotional, more capable of finding my niche.” She spoke with quick, feverish dryness, jerking out the sentences as they formed in her mind, bent upon convincing him that she had the strength to face finality. “Remember how you made me look at the lightning, Ross? I blenched but didn’t flinch because I could feel your strength streaming into me. There have been other times like that.” Her brows drew together and she hurried on. “I’m strong, Ross. Thanks to you.”
“Thanks for my selfish egoism, eh?” He was looking at her with a silvery glint in his eyes. Then he lifted her hand and placed a kiss deep in the palm. “Thanks for your generosity and understanding, Clare.”
The Pryces came in January as they had promised, and Clare welcomed them warmly. Seated beside Mrs. Pryce on the veranda of the schoolhouse, she watched the children form an untidy crocodile on the grass, their fuzzy heads as still as they could keep them, their eyes bright and lively in the gleaming bronze of their faces. Mr. Pryce gave the order to march, and when the children grasped his wishes they began to straggle across to the fence of the playground. They sidled round the corners and finished the first circular tour in a heap at the schoolhouse steps.
Patiently Mr. Pryce put them through their exercises. Five-year-old Eto, the son of Luke, derived great enjoyment from the novelty of it all, hauling every now and again at his roomy shorts and going into spasms of laughter when the other children made mistakes.
Later the children filed into the classroom, ate their bowls of rice and syrup, then sank into somnolence while the missionary read them a simplified version of the Good Samaritan.
Presently Mr. Pryce came out to say that Johnny had come from the house with a message. The steamer was in with the mail and the messenger from the boat had instructions to collect the Bula letters as quickly as possible because the skipper was sick and anxious to get to a doctor.
“We’ll follow you to the house after we’ve cleared up here,” said Mrs. Pryce. “Will you give the boy our letters?”
“Of course,” Clare smiled, and walked the hot, dusty track through the compound. A boy sat on the lowest step outside the house and rose as she approached. She bade Johnny give him food and went into the living-room to find the large oilskin envelope which held their mail. She shook out the bundle of letters and slipped the Pryces’ correspondence into their place, then found her own couple and added them to the packet.
She stood pondering. Where were Ro
ss’s letters? Previously he had sent the messenger ahead, and himself carried the mail down to the landing-stage in order to gather local news from the skipper. Today he was working miles away, and the steamer was in a hurry.
His office stationery he kept in a drawer in his bedroom. Almost certainly his mail would be there. She went through to the bedroom, darkened against the sun, and pulled open the drawer. Yes, here they were, a pile secured with a strip of tape; she returned to the living-room and fitted his letters into the oilskin envelope beside her own and the Pryces’. It was a tight squeeze, the square, official envelope at the back, then the foolscap one to head office, and the small private envelopes....
She stared at the Onitslo address on one of Ross’s. She was suffused with a blinding heat, which became ice. A trickle of cold sweat slanted from the corner of her eyebrow down the side of her cheek ... like a tear. Deftly, as though having no connection with her brain, her hands completed the task of filling the oilskin and securing it. She called Johnny and had him take it away to the boy.
Mechanically her feet paced the room till they halted near a window. She peered through the slatted blind at the baked red soil and the sun-drained grass. Her fingers were plucking at her belt, her nostrils twitched. Slowly the tight feeling in her throat relaxed and she began to breathe more easily. Her head went up proudly and she drew back her shoulders. A desperate little smile pulled at the corners of her mouth.
Why shouldn’t he write to Patsy Harriman? He was free to do as he pleased. He was not curious as to whom, she corresponded with, and she had no right to pry into his letters. It served her right if she had discovered something that was not altogether to her taste.
She took a handkerchief from her pocket, dabbed at her lips and then saw that a small spot of blood had marked the soft white cambric. She had bitten her lip and had not noticed the pain, so bitter was the pain that was squeezing her heart. In his delirium he spoke the girl’s name. He received letters from her ... and he answered those letters. It was hard to bear ... even difficult to understand, for the girl was married, and Clare would not have taken Ross for a man who ran after the wives of other men.
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