A Garland of Marigolds

by Isobel Chace

  “It could have been accidental,” I suggested.

  “You wouldn’t think so if you’d seen his face!”

  I found myself believing her.

  “All the same, I think you’d better forget all about it,” I warned her.

  Camilla gave me a curious look. “Because you believe me?” she asked.

  I hesitated, more than a little embarrassed by the question. “Hush,” I said hastily.

  It wasn’t any too soon to change the subject because at that moment Julie joined us again, all smiles and without a trace of her former rage.

  “How nice it is to see you both enjoying yourselves,” she purred. “And I have some good news for you too! The doctor says it’s a clean break and he’s setting it now, so Gideon won’t have to go to the hospital.”

  “Good,” said Camilla bluntly, “then we can take him home with us!”

  Julie frowned quickly through her smiles.

  “Now, now, I know how much you want him with you, dear, but we must consider the patient a little, too, mustn’t we? He’ll be much better off here with us.”

  Camilla opened her mouth and I knew she was getting ready to argue the point.

  “Of course we shall do whatever is best for him,” I agreed warmly.

  Camilla gave me a stony glare.

  “May we go and talk with him?” I asked politely.

  It was easy to see that Julie wanted to refuse, but she nodded briskly and walked away quickly.

  “You’re not going to leave him?” Camilla whispered anxiously in my ear.

  “Not if I can help it,” I replied grimly. “But Gideon won’t do anything on my say-so. He’ll make his own decision.”

  Camilla sighed. “I expect you’re right.”

  Gideon was sitting up against a pile of cushions with his leg smothered in wet plaster and a rather foolish grin on his face. “Lovely mud pies!” he greeted us cheerfully.

  Camilla went quickly over to the bed and took his hand in hers, squeezing it hard.

  “You’re sure you’re all right?” she asked in a strange, tight voice.

  He laughed up at her.

  “You worry too much, young lady! Give this time to set and I’ll be sitting beside you in the jeep while Suki drives us both home.” Camilla swallowed tearfully.

  “Julie said you would rather stay here!” she said rebelliously. “Did she, though?” He laughed in the most lighthearted way. “That’s no reason to make such a mouthful of the whole thing.” He gave me a quick look and seemed to be reassured by what he saw.

  “Don’t worry, chicken,” he said to his sister, “I’ll be coming home with you!”

  “I hope you’re going to tell Julie,” I said feelingly.

  His eyes shone with amusement. “You’re quite as bad as Camilla,” he teased me. “Seeing bogeymen where there are none! And making such a fuss about it!”

  I would have made some retort that would have put him firmly in his place, only Julie rejoined us at that moment, as sweet as ever and as full of smiles.

  “I’m so sorry to have left you on your own,” she began with that “little-girl” charm I was beginning to despise. “I just called in to see how daddy is getting on. It was such a shock to him. He’s lying down, poor darling. Mother was, too, but now she feels strong enough to see you two girls before you go home. She’s in the drawing room. Shall I show you where?”

  Camilla looked suddenly defeated.

  “It’s all right,” she muttered, “I can find it.” She stood up with a quick, coltish movement. “Come on, Suki, we’d better get it over with.”

  Mrs. Burnett was lying on the sofa, with a handwoven rug cast loosely over her knees. She was very like Julie with soft gray hair, and an innocent expression. But the years had written lines of discontent and disappointment beside the eyes and in the wrinkles of the mouth.

  “Come over here, my dears. Camilla, you can sit on the stool and Miss King in the chair.”

  We obediently settled ourselves, while she looked at us with bland amusement.

  “And what do you think of our remnant of the British Raj?” she asked slyly.

  Camilla managed to show her distaste by being far too enthusiastic.

  “It’s lovely! Were you really here before independence?” Mrs. Burnett winced. Independence didn’t seem so very long ago to her and she didn’t like the fleeting years being pushed on her so ruthlessly. She sighed in a way that was very reminiscent of her daughter.

  “Oh yes, indeed. The wasted years, I often call them. I longed to go home to England, if only because of Julie. She should have friends among her own kind and meet the right young men, but my husband is in love with India and nothing would make him leave. I think he would have died in England—can you understand that? He has lived here for so long that he would be quite out of place in an English provincial town, and London would have completely stifled him. Besides which, living in the sun, you know, does queer things to a man—but we won’t think about that, will we?” She hesitated, obviously unsure as to how to continue. “It’s so difficult for me to ask you this,” she said at last. “But I should be so grateful if you would encourage Gideon to stay here for a few days. It’s not for my sake, but Julie so seldom sees anyone of her own age.” Camilla stared at her with unblinking eyes.

  “I don’t think either of us could persuade Gideon one way or the other,” I said as gently as I could. “Why don’t you talk to him?” Mrs. Burnett looked more upset than ever.

  “I don’t want him to think that we are trying to trap him into anything! Oh dear, how awkward everything is!”

  I smiled sympathetically, trying to ignore the expression of outrage on Camilla’s face.

  “We’re not so very far away and Julie comes over quite often,” I put in comfortingly.

  “It’s not the same. She has no opportunities here, the poor dear.”

  Camilla could keep silent no longer.

  “And so you deliberately trip up Gideon’s horse!” she exclaimed. Mrs. Burnett raised her delicately trimmed eyebrows.

  “I? No, dear. How could I? I wasn’t even playing. And anyway, it’s a pony, not a horse.”

  Camilla cast her outraged glance on me.

  “But he tripped Gideon up!”

  “It doesn’t matter, dear,” I said hastily. “Not now!”

  “But—” she began.

  “But really there’s nothing to say,” I said firmly. “No one can make up Gideon’s mind for him. Not even you!”

  Mrs. Burnett looked sad and worried.

  “I’m sure my husband meant it for the best,” she said humbly. “He gets so worried about Julie, too. You do understand, don’t you?”

  I felt rather sickened by the whole affair.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I assured her in stifled tones. “Perhaps you will excuse us if we go back to Gideon now?”

  Her eyes narrowed and she gave me a look of hatred that was so like her daughter that I gasped.

  “I suppose you’re after him yourself!” she snapped.

  I eyed her helplessly. But Camilla had none of my reservations. “Suki wouldn’t be so vulgar,” she remarked with touching dignity. “Would you, Suki?”

  I muttered something that could have been either yes or no, took one last despairing look around the too upholstered room, and fled down the passage to Gideon’s bedroom. I rushed into his room without knocking. I felt stifled and dirtied by the scented air of the Burnetts and the kind of life they were trying to keep alive. “Oh, Gideon!” I gulped.

  He was very nice about it. He held both my hands reassuringly and the mocking look went out of his eyes.

  “Well, well,” he said. “How very flattering! I gather your reactions to our hostess are exactly the same as Camilla’s!”

  I bit my lip. “It isn’t that I don’t like them,” I hedged. “No?”

  “And it isn’t Julie’s fault, is it?” I went on with determined objectivity.

  Gideon lost his smile and became s
erious for a while. “That’s the way I look at it,” he said. “What chance has she had? Imagine being cooped up in this museum.”

  Considering that I agreed with him, I wondered why I should resent his interest in Julie so much. I pulled my hands free and sighed.

  “Does that mean you’re going to stay for a while?” I asked casually.

  He gave me a lopsided grin.

  “Not exactly. I have a job to do and I reckon I shall be able to do most of it on crutches—somehow. No, I thought perhaps we could have Julie over more often. She might like to come and stay for a spell. She could share the same house as you and Camilla.”

  “I suppose she could,” I agreed gloomily.

  “It wouldn’t be for long, necessarily,” he coaxed me.

  I smiled deliberately and said with forced cheerfulness, “It won’t matter to me anyhow! I shall be far too busy building my dam!”

  “Oh?” he asked cautiously.

  “It’s all settled,” I went on, the words tumbling over themselves. “I explained it all to the old men of the village and they were quite pleased!”

  “Indeed?”

  I remembered belatedly that his permission was still required. “You do approve, don’t you?” I asked him anxiously.

  “I don’t know,” he replied dryly. “You’ll have to tell me about it.”

  “Yes, I will,” I assured him. “It won’t cost very much at all. I really think you’ll like the idea.”

  “Possibly,” he said with complete lack of interest. “But in the meantime I want nothing so much as to go home.”

  With compassion I noticed the worn look on his face. We were all so interested in our own affairs that we hardly had time to fully realize that he was the one who was badly hurt.

  “I’m sorry, Gideon.”

  He smiled. “I know you are. You’re a soft-hearted creature.” He began to struggle off the bed.

  “I think I’d better get some help,” I suggested.

  He nodded, concentrating hard on the sheer physical effort of gaining his balance.

  “Get Camilla,” he bade me. “And if you can, get the jeep around to the nearest door.”

  Camilla came running when I called her. She helped her brother across the room and toward the door that I had first come in by.

  “I thought Julie was with you,” she half-accused him. He leaned a little more heavily on her shoulder.

  “To tell the truth I was in pain and wanted to be alone for a while,” he told her. “She’ll be along to say good-bye.”

  Mrs. Burnett came, too, to wave good-bye to her parting guests. She put a possessive arm around her daughter’s shoulders and hugged her close.

  “It’s been such fun having your friends for the day,” she said brightly. “I do hope that poor boy is going to be all right, jolting over these rough roads. You must drive extra carefully, Miss King!”

  It was quite a business getting Gideon installed in the jeep. Fortunately the front seat gave him plenty of room for his leg to stick out in front of him and there were a number of cushions that could be used as props. I looked at his ashen face with some anxiety, noticing afresh the lines of pain and his shadowed eyes that his determined smile was not really covering up.

  “The sooner we go the better,” I said to Camilla. She got into the back after shaking hands prettily with Mrs. Burnett. Julie she just ignored, and I was in two minds as to whether I ought to press her to at least say good-bye. But I need not have worried because Julie was not thinking of Camilla at all. Just as I was on the point of letting in the clutch, she made a rush at Gideon, flung her arms around his neck and kissed him warmly.

  “I’ll be over first thing in the morning,” she whispered to him. “It won’t be so very long to wait, will it?”

  I couldn’t help noticing that he kissed her back.

  “I’ll be waiting for you, chicken,” he said.

  Julie flushed with pleasure and triumph and graciously nodded her head to me.

  “Be very careful with him, Susan. He means a great deal to me!” As if we hadn’t all been made aware of that! I didn’t say a word.

  “Did you hear that?” Camilla demanded in exasperated tones.

  Gideon sat well back in his seat and closed his eyes.

  “My, my,” he said, “how you girls do carry on!” And I wondered if he meant Camilla and me or Julie Burnett. But somehow it seemed too much to hope that he meant the latter.

  Gideon remained unbearable for the rest of the day. He lay in his bed and demanded that everybody pay him a visit at frequent intervals throughout the evening. My turn came just as I was putting the finishing touches to my latest drawing of the dam I was going to build. I threw down my pencil, feeling thoroughly cross, and went across to the main house and his bedroom.

  “I think you’re having far too many visitors!” I greeted him.

  He scowled at me through the gloom from the inadequate lamp. “Is that possible? For heaven’s sake, woman, stop staring at me and do something to make me a little more comfortable!”

  I humped up his pillows and tried to straighten out the worst of the creases in his sheets.

  “Why don’t you give in and try to get some sleep?”

  He snorted impatiently. “Does that mean you’re ready for bed?” he demanded.

  I smothered a yawn. “Not at all,” I said very politely. “If you like, I’m quite prepared to entertain you for the greater part of the night.”

  He gave me a suspicious look and was only partly mollified by the innocent expression on my face.

  “I suppose you’d better tell me about this dam of yours,” he bribed me. I fell for the suggestion, hook, line and sinker. He grinned at me amiably. “Suppose you show me the drawings,” he suggested.

  I eyed the black smudges under his eyes with some misgiving, but I went and got the drawings all the same. My enthusiasm for the project bubbled up inside me and I was doubly annoyed that I hadn’t been able to finish the drawings properly.

  Gideon snatched the sheaf of papers from me and spread them out on the bed. I tried to explain the main points to him, but he brushed away my explanations preferring to see the thing as a whole for himself.

  “Are you planning to line the reservoirs?” he asked.

  I hesitated. “I’m not sure. Some of the surrounding soil is clay.”

  “But it will lead to seepage?”

  I nodded unhappily. “The trouble is the lining adds to the cost,” I explained.

  He glanced down at my figures. “I think it would prove less costly in the end than persistent seepage.”

  I nodded. It sounded as though he was keen as well and that was what I wanted at that moment, more than anything else in the world.

  “What had you thought of using?” he asked me.

  I pointed at yet another piece of paper.

  “Possibly butyl. It’s easy enough to lay. You just drag the sheets out flat and join them together.”

  “Or?”

  “Or P.V.C. The sun might affect it, but if it’s buried under six inches of soil, with the edges covered even more carefully and compacted, I think it should last a long while. It has the advantage of being about a third of the cost of the other and the labor costs shouldn’t be very great.”

  “No,” he agreed. “We can pick up enough cheap labor to do the whole thing in a few days. The difficulty will be in getting the materials.”

  “I’ll get them,” I assured him doggedly. “I’ll get them if it’s the last thing I do!”

  Gideon lay back, suddenly exhausted.

  “It may very well be!” he said. “You’d better take a trip to Delhi and see what you can do!”

  I sat very still, scarcely daring to breathe.

  “Do you mean I can go ahead?”

  He grinned. “I don’t see why not,” he said.

  I couldn’t sleep that night. Every time I turned out the light, I thought of yet another point to do with the dam. By the gray light of dawn I had modified
the whole project into a much more sensible unit that had the potential to water most of the research station and not just the two fields on either side of the turgid stream. A wretched bird that I had never heard before stopped just outside my window and mocked my restlessness. I buried my head in the pillow and within a few seconds I was fast asleep.

  I awoke only because Camilla was pinching my ear. Resentfully, I struggled to free myself, but she was persistent, and slowly I pulled myself into full consciousness.

  “What do you want?” I asked grumpily.

  Camilla laughed. “Considering it’s nearly lunchtime—”

  “Lunchtime!” I sat up hastily and stared at her. “It can’t be!”

  “Oh, but it is! And brother Gideon would like to see you when you can spare the time.”

  I gave an abashed glance at the plans of the dam that had fallen on the floor by my bed.

  “Did he say that?” I asked, thinking that I recognized Gideon’s touch in the words.

  Camilla nodded vigorously. Her eyes were lit with laughter, and immediately I was suspicious.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “What should be up? Apart from the fact that you’re so late that it’s hardly worth your while beginning a day’s work!”

  I ignored that, feeling rather ashamed of myself. When I put my feet on the floor and stood up, I felt heavy and immobile as one does when one has slept too deeply after a restless night.