by Anne Hampson
He started—yes, she saw with real satisfaction—he started at her words, scarcely able to believe his ears.
‘By God, Beth, if I were to turn you upside down here, in front of all this crowd, it would be no more than you deserve!’
She laughed delightedly.
‘I seem able to rile you without the least trouble,’ she gloated. ‘You must admit that this round goes to me?’
‘It does?’ His flash of temper died as quickly as it had flared. He looked down into her face and quirked her a smile. ‘Enjoy it, then, my dear, because I can assure you that the next round goes to me.’
‘Counting your chickens?’ Her glance upwards was almost coquettish. She rather thought she was beginning to enjoy this evening. Chad was dancing superbly, and at present she herself was his equal. They glided round the floor, regarded with interest by many people. And suddenly Beth was aware of the fixed and hostile stare of Chad’s girl-friend, who was standing with a young man with whom she had danced on several occasions, not only on this particular evening but on previous ones too. Beth had never seen him until recently. He had certainly not been one of the crowd she was used to meeting when on her visits to her uncle.
‘Yes, Beth, I am counting my chickens.’ Chad swung her almost into the air as he avoided another couple. ‘Confidence, you see, is one of my characteristics.’
‘How lucky can you get?’ returned his partner with dry sarcasm.
‘You are asking for it ...’ His face was close to hers, his lips were against her ear. ‘Have you no inbuilt warning apparatus that prevents your taking all these risks?’
She had to laugh.
‘What are you threatening me with, Chad?’
‘You’re very brave, aren’t you? You feel safe because we’re here, in the midst of a crowd. How would you feel, I wonder, if we were alone ... in my house, say?’
‘I’m not such a fool as to put myself in that sort of position,’ she assured him with confidence.
‘So you do admit to being afraid of me?’ Again he swung her round to avoid collision with another couple. She caught her breath, exhilarated by the sensation of floating on air.
‘I’d never admit to being afraid even if I was,’ she answered at length, and again he quirked her a smile. The amusement in his eyes matched the smile and as she stared into his bronzed and handsome face she was forced to admit that the man had certain attractions that could not possibly be ignored.
‘You’re frank at least,’ he said.
‘And what does the “at least” mean, might I ask?’
‘That’s a question, Beth, to be ignored, simply because you know the answer.’ He drew a hand across his forehead. ‘It’s getting too warm for me in here. Shall we go out for a breather?’
She did not know why she hesitated, because she did know that he was the last person she wanted to go outside with. And yet she was undecided, having to agree that the atmosphere was actually stifling and that a spot of fresh air would be more than welcome. She found herself saying,
‘Yes, all right, Chad.’
‘The antagonism appears to have fizzled out,’ he was saying in some amusement a few moments later as they sauntered through the grounds of the Club.
‘A temporary truce, that’s all,’ she assured him.
‘So be it—’ Without warning he had grasped her hand and hurried her from the lighted path into a darkened copse where Traveller’s Palms effectively hid them from the view of anyone who might be anywhere about.
‘What the—!’ Beth’s angry protest was stemmed before it was voiced, stemmed by the pressure of Chad’s lips on hers. She felt suffocated, for he showed her no mercy. His arms about her were like steel hawsers, his body was sensually insulting, his mouth a weapon to force her lips apart with brutal disregard for the pain they were inflicting upon her. She tried to struggle but soon gave up; he was determined to make her pay for those remarks she had made in there and she felt that to remain passive would probably save her a few bruises.
When at last he held her from him she was ready; her hand came up and fetched him a slap across his smiling, triumphant face. He caught her hand, twisted her arm and her body at the same time. She gasped disbelievingly at the swiftness of the manoeuvre that brought her across his uplifted knee. He actually moved her long dress before the beating began; she wanted to scream, but dared not for fear of bringing people to witness her supreme embarrassment. Would he never stop? His fury was the driving force of his violence and although he knew she was crying softly he kept on for what seemed an eternity before he put her on her feet again.
She swayed, unable to see for the tears that blinded her. But he was not finished with her yet. She was caught to him, crushed without mercy to his hard and sinewed body. His hand came up, finding her breast, while his mouth ruthlessly possessed hers.
‘Now,’ he said calmly when he had finished, ‘I think you’ll agree that this round goes to me?’
Beth failed to make any sound when she tried to speak. Memory was flooding in with vivid intensity and she was recalling that desire to see him dead, eyes staring, body mangled. She did manage to articulate words at last.
‘If I were a man,’ she said between her teeth, ‘I’d torture you, slowly, and then strangle you.’ She was looking up at him through a deluge of tears; she felt small and helpless and frustrated by her feminine lack of strength.
‘If you were a man, my dear, this situation would never have arisen.’ To her surprise he produced a handkerchief. ‘Let me dry your eyes—’
‘No! Leave me alone!’
For answer he took her chin in his hand, forced her face back again as she turned it from him, and proceeded to dry her tears.
‘Silly child to goad me,’ he said. ‘I hope the lesson will have the desired result. I’m not at all happy in the role of woman-beater, but on the other hand I don’t intend to take any more sauce from you, Beth. I don’t believe you’re the vixen you’d have me believe you are, so change your ways and let me see the real you.’ He paused a moment, but she had nothing to say. ‘Are you feeling ready to go back now?’
‘Do I look ready?’ she could not help retorting.
‘I can’t see you properly. Come out into the light and we’ll see.’
She went meekly even though she was feeling far from meek. On the contrary, she still felt like killing him.
‘I want to go home,’ she muttered as he looked at her. They were on the lighted path and another couple was strolling towards them. ‘I must get away from here!’
‘Do you want me to take you home?’
‘Why should I want you to take me home?’ she flashed at him furiously.
‘Because you’ve only one vehicle and the others will need it.’
Beth stared up at him, conscious of the other couple approaching. She wondered what she looked like, being reluctant to go home if she could stay. For to leave now would only result in questions being asked by her two cousins—and others for that matter, since she was quite friendly with some of the farmers and their wives, having met them so often on her visits to her uncle.
‘I’d rather stay,’ she said, and Chad gave an exasperated little exclamation.
‘You’ve just said you want to go home! What a perverse woman you are! It’s no wonder I want to school you ever time I set eyes on you. Do you want to go home or don’t you?’
Strangely, he seemed concerned about her, and when she looked up into his face after the couple had passed, she saw with some surprise that his expression had softened in spite of the tone of voice he had just used to her.
‘Carole and Jo will be concerned if I say I’m feeling ill,’ she said.
His concern—if it had been there—changed to amusement now and his mouth lifted at one corner in the hint of a smile.
‘Why say you’re ill? Why not tell them the truth—that you’ve had a darned good hiding that’s spoiled your evening?’
Beth’s small fists clenched at her sides. Anger was
rising again, tightening her nerves.
‘Your jokes are not amusing,’ she said through teeth that were pressed together.
‘Shall we keep to the point, Beth?’ Mildly admonishing his voice, but edged with impatience too. ‘Are you going home or not?’
‘I think I’ll stay—’ She put her hands to her hot cheeks, moving her fingers to see if her eyes were swollen. ‘Do I look awful?’ Her voice was low; she had no idea just how forlorn she looked. And had anyone told her that Chad was in any way affected by this she most certainly would not have believed them.
‘You’ll be all right in a few minutes,’ he said reassuringly, and, taking her arm, he began to walk along the path, choosing the direction away from the lights of the Club windows. ‘The cool breeze will restore your beauty in a very short time.’
Beth wondered why she did not wrench herself free, why the touch of his hand on her arm was not hateful to her. She could only put it down to her exhausted state of body and self-pitying state of mind. His use of the word beauty took her by surprise too, since she would not have expected flattery to come to her from those mocking lips.
A quarter of an hour later they were entering the Club again, and several heads turned, then remarks were passed. Rosa glided up to them, her dark eyes narrowed, her mouth compressed. But she obviously had no intention of showing her temper as she said, ‘So here you are at last, Chad. I’ve been looking for you. I was so hot I needed to go outside, but I wouldn’t go on my own.’ A small pause and then, ‘Will you come with me, darling?’
He nodded, slanting Beth a glance.
‘If you’ll excuse me?’ he said. ‘It seems I’m to take another stroll in the gardens.’
Beth watched them go towards the verandah, then disappear from her view. She thought: ‘It won’t be a spanking she’ll get from him—’ And she frowned to herself as she wondered why she should be feeling piqued that Rosa was getting kisses while she was getting something very different indeed. Oh, yes, she had had kisses! But scarcely the kind he would be giving to Rosa. No, he would be the gentle lover ... Or would he? The man was arrogant, had the most inflated ego of any man she had ever met. He would probably behave just as masterfully with Rosa as he had with Beth, kissing her possessively, and not very gently, taking what he wanted and to the devil with whether Rosa liked it or not.
But somehow Beth was sure that Rosa would like it ...
The following morning Chad called at Jacana Lodge while Jo and Carole were out, having gone together into Warrenville to do some shopping, Jo driving the station wagon, a fairly new vehicle that had been used by their uncle as a runabout. His car was being shipped to England.
‘Good morning to you, Beth. I thought I’d better come over and see how you are.’ Chad’s mocking smile was nothing more than a lift at one corner of his mouth; his keen blue eyes flickered over her before coming to rest on her face. She flushed, naturally, the delicate colour intruding into the pure alabaster of her skin. Her mouth quivered slightly and her long curling lashes came down in slow motion, hiding the embarrassment in her lovely blue eyes. Unexpectedly his voice was gentle. ‘Did you have a good night’s sleep?’
She thought afterwards that here was an opportunity of becoming a little more friendly with him, but for the present she only wanted to hit back at him.
‘If you think anything you did kept me awake then you’re more pompous than I imagined!’
An indrawn breath; a moment of silence and then, very softly,
‘Beth, let me give you some good advice. I’m not the man to take what you’re determined to give. All right, you believe you’ve a grievance from the past, but you’re a big girl now and in your heart you know damned well that you deserved what I gave you. You’d not only taken my boat without my permission, but when I scolded you you turned around and gave me a whole lot of cheek.’ He paused, but Beth did not speak. Her head was bent, but he tilted it with a finger under her chin. ‘Yes,’ he murmured with maddening perception, ‘secretly you are admitting that you deserved all you got, but you’d never admit it to me, would you? Too proud, and too absorbed with dislike of me. Well, have it that way, but don’t goad me too far!’ Stern his voice now, and imperiously masterful. Beth knew that if she had any sense she would never goad him again ... but despite his threats she knew that she would goad him again.
Chad released her chin and changed the subject with a suddenness that made her start.
‘How about offering me a cup of coffee, Beth? We’re noted for our hospitality, you know.’
‘The Afrikanders are,’ she said, adding that she was not an Afrikander.
‘Coffee,’ he repeated in some exasperation. ‘Do you want me to write to your uncle and tell him what a disagreeable little spitfire you’ve become?’
She looked startled, a circumstance that appeared to give him a high degree of satisfaction.
‘You wouldn’t,’ she said.
‘I might, if you don’t mend your ways.’ The mocking edge to his voice set her nerves tightening, but she was not intending to allow him to goad her.
‘I’ll tell Rikuya to make some coffee,’ she said, and left him. When she came back he was seated comfortably on one of the rattan chairs, his long legs stretched out in front of him, one hand thrust into the belt of his denims. Beth stood for a moment looking at him, her senses stirred in some strange indefinable way that made her frown without having any idea why. She knew a restlessness, a sort of vague yearning which left her floundering, lost in a sense of bewilderment which was as puzzling as it was disturbing.
Chad turned his head, conscious of her concentrated stare. She saw the sun gleaming on the grey hairs at his temple, the shadow cast on his face by the bougainvillaea vine which draped the verandah wall and tumbled in glorious profusion on to the rail. He quirked her a smile in that familiar way, his blue eyes keen and sharp as frost on an April morning.
‘Something the matter?’ Casual his tone, but the mocking amusement was there. ‘Thinking up some way to murder me without getting caught for it?’ Two spots of colour in her cheeks gave the only indication that his words had angered her. She said lightly, taking a seat opposite to him,
‘Murder would be too kind. I’d prefer torture ... slow and given in small doses, at regular intervals.’
His eyes widened in disbelief before he threw back his head and laughed.
‘Well, well ... I’ve had the opinion that while there was dislike and resentment there was in fact no real hatred. But this is sheer undisguised vindictiveness. I’m surprised at you, Beth—and disappointed. You’ve gone down in my estimation in the last few minutes—’
‘I was never up in your estimation,’ she broke in, faintly upset by his words.
‘You were never as low as this. I’d considered it all to be something of a joke, thinking, that although we fought there was nothing serious in any of it—’
‘Nothing serious in your using violence on me? I’ll bet you’d never treat Rosa like that!’ Automatically she moved a hand, to take a shell-pink carnation from the vase on the table. She held it before her, marvelling at nature’s creation.
‘Rosa would never do anything to deserve that sort of treatment,’ Chad was saying. ‘She’s a lady.’
‘Thanks! I’m not, then?’
Chad raised an eyebrow disdainfully.
‘No,’ he answered, ‘you are not.’
Beth averted her head, furious that she should be feeling censured, and that she deserved to be censured.
‘In that case,’ she retorted, ‘why have you taken the trouble to come and see me?’
‘Because I promised your uncle I’d keep an eye on you all.’
‘We don’t need you to keep an eye on us!’
‘Beth,’ he said in a very soft tone, ‘try to snap out of it. You can’t harbour this hatred for a whole year, you know. Besides, I shall be including you all when I entertain, and, meanwhile, I’m having a birthday party for my niece, who’s an orphan living and working
in Johannesburg. I shall naturally ask you three girls to come. You’ll meet Valerie beforehand, of course.’
Beth looked at him in surprise.
‘I didn’t know you had a niece,’ she said.
‘But then you don’t know much about me at all,’ he reminded her. ‘Each time you’ve visited your uncle you’ve avoided me like the plague.’
She replaced the flower and it was some moments before she spoke.
‘I had reason for avoiding you,’ was all she said when at last she did decide to speak. Her eyes had wandered to where the men were working among the maize. They were singing and their deep melodious voices drifted over the warm scented air, primitive and haunting as the land itself.
‘Well, you can’t go on avoiding me,’ Chad said with conviction. ‘We’re a friendly community in spite of the estates being so far-flung. And you’ll have invitations where you’ll always find me there, one of the guests. If you entertain yourselves you’ll excite comment if you leave me out, just as I would were I to leave you girls out—which I wouldn’t do anyway.’ He looked at her across the table, regarding her flushed face with sternness now, and no mockery. ‘I suggest we agree on a truce—and see that it lasts.’
She set her mouth. It was all very well for him to talk like this. He hadn’t suffered at her hands the way she had suffered at his. She disliked him intensely, so how could she pretend otherwise? Besides, she desperately wanted to fight back, to repay him for the insults he seemed always to have been heaping on her head.
‘I don’t think you and I could ever be friends,’ she said at last, turning as the houseboy appeared with the tray.
He put it on the table and Beth told him he could go. He had brought hot buttered scones, she noticed, and asked Chad to try one.
‘Carole’s made them,’ she added, pouring the coffee. ‘She enjoys baking and Sara doesn’t seem to mind her taking over the kitchen now and then!’
Chad helped himself and nodded approvingly.
‘Very good,’ he said, and Beth offered him another.
The visit came to an end at last, with nothing being settled regarding the truce which Chad had mentioned. But later in the day, when Beth was taking a stroll along the path leading to the low white Colonial-style homestead that had been in the Barret family for three generations, she saw him in the garden and was invited in to wander around.