Portrait of Susan

by Rosalind Brett

  “I know, I know.” He sounded impatient. “It’s the devil when I have to make an appointment with you here because I can’t be certain of privacy in my own house! It can’t last too long, thank God.”

  She sat very straight. “How have I displeased you?” she asked distantly.

  “Here we go. You know darned well what’s wrong.” His glance was narrow and held a taunt. “When Deline said you were flattered by Clive Carlsten’s attentions I laughed at her, because I thought you had far more sense than to let a man of his type turn your head. My asking you to see that he and Deline were seldom alone wasn’t a tacit order that you be along with him yourself.”

  “How can it possibly affect you, whether I’m alone with him or not?”

  His teeth closed. “The situation was my brain-child—remember? It’s through me that you know Clive, and it’s for me to see that you don’t get hurt!”

  “Very well, you’ve warned me,” she said steadily, “though I can’t think why. Clive isn’t a man who’d deliberately hurt a woman.”

  David straightened and dug his hands a little further into his pockets. “You’d never understand him in a thousand years. He’s too practised ever to be found out by an innocent like you. So practised that there’s hardly a genuine impulse in him.”

  “I can’t believe that,” she answered; lifting her head. “I don’t know what Deline told you about their engagement but there was nothing for Clive to be ashamed of in the version he gave me, and I think he’s honest.”

  His grin was unpleasant. “You’d back his word against Deline’s? Do you realize what you’re implying?”

  She quailed before that steely gaze but nodded; “Yes, I do. Perhaps it’s odd, but I happen to like Clive.”

  “Very much?”

  “Yes,” she admitted slowly, “very much.”

  His mouth tightened a fraction. “You do know why he’s told you about his engagement to Deline, don’t you?”

  She tried to speak reasonably. “He hadn’t a purpose. It came out while we were talking over at Paul’s cottage yesterday.”

  “Naturally. Clive would be clever enough to choose his moment.” He moved suddenly, as if he would have paced from wall to wall had there been space. “Look here, Susan. I don’t care for this heavy uncle business any more than you do, but frankly you’ve got me worried. Clive is nearly twice your age, a dabbler in the arts—and by arts I don’t mean only the three orthodox branches! As a man, there may be quite a lot of good in him, but in essentials—as they might affect you—he’s tarnished. Do you understand?”

  Yes, Susan understood, and the implications of what he was getting at brought anger quivering into her throat, anger which had nothing whatever to do with Clive Carlsten.

  “You’re telling me,” she said in controlled tones, “not to lose my head over him. All right, I won’t.”

  He bent towards her, a blue flame in the grey eyes. “If that means what I believe it does, you’re suggesting that you’re quite capable of handling your own affairs. Well I expected that. Normally, I wouldn’t blame you for resenting interference, but some things are too big for you to manage alone. This may stab a little”—his lip drew in—“but you’ve got to hear it. Clive has always been a goner for a pretty face, but except with Deline he’s never been serious about a woman. He probably came out here hoping Deline would have changed her mind—and I’d be the last person to blame him for that. But she hasn’t changed her mind, so he’s grasping at the most convenient means of showing her how little it bothers him. And he’s not only making use of you in the present situation. If it doesn’t get results,” he ended forcefully, “he’ll go the whole way and marry you.”

  There was a silence, measured by the regular beating of a hardback’s wings outside the window. A praying mantis clung to the natural linen curtain, a long vivid green insect piously clasping its feelers. Susan stared at it, and wondered why her anger had suddenly splintered like glass into a hundred pinpricks of pain. What in the world did she expect—a declaration that David would rather marry her himself?

  She made a hollow sound of amusement. “Now you’re being fantastic,” she said. “To begin with I was friendly with Clive because you asked it of me. According to you, he’s now turned the tables and is using me, but I don’t see that it matters. I find that having a friend in your house is a pleasant change.”

  “That’s a pretty drastic statement,” he said curtly. “You know you can always count on me for anything you want.”

  "Yes, but it’s not the same as having someone near with whom you can relax. Somehow, with you, I ... well, I’m always wound up because I know you disapprove of nearly everything I do.”

  “You do such aggravating things, at times,” he said, a harsh note in his voice. He had shifted and was near the window, looking out. “Let me assure you,” he added, as if he meant it, “that if I’d known as much about you before I came here as I know now, I would never have made the plans I did.”

  “Wouldn’t you?”—curiously. Gaining no reply, she tacked on, “Well, that’s to the point, anyway.”

  Swiftly and savagely, he thrust open the window and flicked the praying mantis outside. Then he turned. “I’d like to shake you up in a way you’d never forget! I don’t seek these upsets—I hate them—yet they seem inevitable.”

  “We ... just don’t get on.” She stood up and twisted the chair seat under the desk. “We haven’t got very far, have we? Was that all you wanted me for?”

  “It was plenty, if it will make you more careful with Clive. Susan”—he gave a sigh—“will you do something for me?”

  “If it’s possible,” she replied guardedly.

  “Will you try to forget your dislike of Deline? I know you find her a little difficult, but I’m sure you can be gentle and sympathetic; the stony attitude isn’t natural to you at all. I’d particularly like you to make the effort because I’m planning a break for the four of us. I thought we’d leave Paul in charge for a week, and make the trip into Mozambique.”

  Her green glance widened. “You mean you’d take me with you?”

  “Of course. I know the territory well, but you, Deline and Clive have never been there.” He paused, and the brief silence throbbed. “I think such a trip might help to solve a good deal for all of us.”

  Susan turned away. “I haven’t any insoluble problems,” she said, “nothing extraordinary, anyway. I’m sorry, Mr. Forrest, but I couldn’t go with you on such a trip.”

  “Let’s make it David, shall we?” he said crisply. “What’s to prevent your going?”

  “My inclinations.”

  “Don’t give me that. Only the other evening you mentioned a longing to visit various places, and Mozambique was one of them.”

  She swung round on him and the breath caught in her throat. “You never see anything from another’s viewpoint, do you? I do want to go to Mozambique and Zimbabwe and Khami and the rest, but I’ll either go alone or with someone who really wants me with them. I won’t join a party to keep the numbers even!”

  “You stubborn little ass! Why do you have to look for a selfish motive in everything I do?”

  “Because, somehow,” she answered swiftly, “that’s exactly how it turns out. It may be handy to have me around to keep things conventional, but I refuse to go further than I’ve gone already. Find some other woman to make up your four for Mozambique!”

  She hadn’t noticed him moving, but he was now between herself and the door. She stood in sunshine, so that her hair was a quivering yellow-gold and her eyes a brighter than natural green, but he was in shadow, his dark face expressionless except for the tautness of his jaw.

  “I’m not begging you,” he said. “While you’re so full of hate I wouldn’t want you along, anyway. We’ll let it ride for a week or two. But I still think it wouldn’t hurt you to be a little more friendly towards Deline. It isn’t as if she were able to go about and find companionship elsewhere.”

  She swallowed fier
cely, to still the working of her throat. “If you’re trying to make me feel a cad you’re not succeeding, Mr. Forest. Mrs. Maynton is like you—just barely grateful for the fact that I’m there, to keep the balance. She has no other use for me—I doubt if she has any other use for women at all.” Recklessly, she tacked on, “And if in telling the truth I’ve finally shown you what a hard, unwomanly creature I am, I don’t care!”

  “Now we’ve started, let’s get this quite straight, he said smoothly. “Go right ahead.”

  Susan’s hands gripped damply in upon themselves. “There’s nothing more. We’re simply back where we were at the beginning.”

  “Except that you now have Clive Carlsten as a friend and ally!”

  Her head went up. “I hope so, while he’s here. May I go now?”

  He gave a brief edged laugh. “I saw this little interview ending rather differently. The Wardons are due back today, and I thought we’d go over to Maringa together and open up for them. Imagine it—the two of us friendly for that long!”

  Treacherous blood came into her cheeks, and her lips parted. Suddenly she wanted so desperately to go with him and share the fun of preparing the Wardon’s house for their return that she would have retracted every hostile word she had ever spoken to him. She saw them propping wide the house door, opening the windows, bringing out the veranda furniture, filling the vases and the water cooler, setting milk and eggs and soft cheese in the fridge, making up the beds; and half-way through they might have shared a scratch lunch.

  But it was no use. That half-sneer at his mouth jerked her back to the mood of the moment. Quickly, she veiled the look of appeal in her eyes, and shrugged.

  “The Wardons have a good houseboy. Once the house is open he’ll do the rest.”

  He opened the door and the glare was suddenly blinding. He stood aside and she passed him, unconsciously squaring her shoulders to bear the heat. She looked up, only now remembering that the sky had been overcast fifteen minutes before, and she saw a weird brazen sky edged with mountainous purple. The gelding stood uneasily tossing his head, and when David caught at the rein the horse whinnied.

  “I don’t think you’d better ride; he’s nervous,” said David. “I’ll take him to the stables; you go down through the orchard.” It sounded like dismissal, but his hand covered her elbow and held on. Quietly, he said, “You haven’t lost the chance of going with me to Maringa.”

  If she could have laughed and answered, “That’s big of you—thanks. I’d love it,” they would have been back on the old footing, with David sharp and bantering and herself smiling but careful.

  But her every nerve was shatteringly aware of him, and the arm he held burned with an electric heat. She thought she sensed a mocking malice in him, a knowledge that he could master her as he mastered others with that gaunt, eagle strength of his. And again she knew the swift thrust of warning: to give in to him was to lose something vital, something she could never recover.

  So she looked pointedly down at the brown hand that held her elbow and said, “It isn’t a bit necessary for the two of us to go. I’ll look in and see Mrs. Wardon tomorrow. In any case, I have quite a few jobs to do this morning.”

  His hand dropped, the arrogant nose thinned at the nostrils. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll take Deline along for the ride.” And he swung on to the back of the gelding and turned it towards the stables.

  Susan saw that the stirrups reached only to his lower calf, that the gelding quietened under his touch, and then she turned and went quickly down the path to the house.

  Perhaps it was inevitable that at dinner that evening Clive should suggest a visit to the Zimbabwe ruins.

  “There’s still so much mystery about the place that I’m intrigued,” he said. “It’s almost inconceivable that an ancient built-up area can give no concrete clues to its origin. I feel I must see the place, to believe it exists.”

  “I’m afraid,” said Deline in her sweetest tones, “that a ruined city in the wilds is one of the things I’ll believe without seeing. There’s no fun in getting horribly tired for no reward.”

  “I rather thought that would be your reaction,” Clive commented, apparently without feeling. “It can be managed in a day’s outing, can’t it, David?”

  “Easily. If you leave straight after breakfast and take a picnic lunch you’ll be able to spend two or three hours there. I warn you, though, that at this time of the year you’ll have Zimbabwe and the surrounding hills entirely to yourself.”

  Clive winked at Susan. “We shan’t mind that, shall we?” David looked non-committal.

  Susan asked evenly, “Are you inviting me to go with you, Clive?”

  “I certainly am. I’d rather go to these places with you than with anyone else I can think of. The youthful slant is so stimulating. Shall we make it tomorrow?”

  David pushed away his fruit plate, said disinterestedly, “It’s going to rain. You’d better wait a while.”

  “The ground is so parched that the first rain will clear quickly,” said Susan. “We could probably go the day after tomorrow.”

  “It seems you’re irresistible, Clive,” put in Deline, rather too musically.

  “That being so, I must make the most of it, don’t you think?” he queried lightly.

  The meal finished and they had coffee in the living-room with doors and windows wide. The air that was normally so dry had the heavy stickiness of excessive humidity, and the house servants appeared to be both excited and weighed down by the reluctant storm.

  Paul looked in and said uncertainly, “It’s bound to rain before morning. I was wondering if a storm might alter your orders, David.”

  “No,” was the answer, “they’ll simply have to be postponed till it’s over.”

  Paul smiled at Deline, bent over her and asked in strained tones how she was feeling. David’s mouth was sarcastic, and Clive grinned at Susan. Watching them, Susan felt her nerves contracting. How utterly it pleased Deline to be the focus of the attention of these three men! Paul had already realized the hopelessness of his own infatuation; if only he would hang on to his pride, and disguise it

  Contrary to her habit, Susan went first to bed. She said goodnight impartially and thankfully closed herself within her room. Her bruised spirit was restless, and all her worries for Paul had fused into a solid covering of ice about her heart. Fatally, she knew that this time it was real. He had fooled with girls, even become fond of one or two, but never before had any woman caused that self-deprecating feverishness in his manner. Tonight, he had seemed quiet, but tormented as only a man unhappily in love can be tormented. Suddenly, it became necessary to act at once, or at least to get out into the night and do some clear thinking. Yes, that was it. She would unlock her verandah door and slip out and back again, unseen.

  She switched off the bedside lamp, went to the french window and turned the key. The door opened softly and she went out and pulled it gently closed behind her.

  She had come here to think about Paul, to decide what she could do for him. But here he was, coming along the path, and the last thing she wanted was to face him now, when he thought her in bed. She left the path, shrank close to the hedge and thanked heaven she was wearing a dark frock.

  “Paul!” The voice was low and imperative—David’s. Susan’s heart lurched. She saw her brother stop, saw David’s long stride as he came level, saw them confront each other. And heard their words far too clearly.

  Thinly, Paul said, “Yes, David?”

  They were six feet away from Susan. Her pulses hammered in her throat and her knees trembled so violently that she was sure they must give way.

  David spoke calmly, reasonably. “Paul, you’re a fool. You’re behaving like an adolescent in the throes of his first affair. For Pete’s sake, cut it out.”

  Paul’s voice almost creaked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You know, all right. If it were some other woman I wouldn’t interfere because it wouldn’t be my busi
ness. But Deline is my cousin. I brought her here to convalesce after a nasty experience, and she simply isn’t fit enough either to want or to deal with passing love affairs. I know how you feel.” The broad shoulders lifted. “Deline is a beautiful woman and she’s too considerate of your feelings to repulse you in any way. You couldn’t mean a thing to her—you know that.”

  “Yes,” said Paul woodenly. “I know.”

  “Then why the deuce don’t you keep out of her way? It would be best for both of you.”

  Susan’s whole being ached. She could hear Paul’s heavy breathing, could even see him moistening his lips to reply, and she felt sick to the depths for this brother of hers who had never felt deeply before and was therefore unable to cope.

  “I think I’d better resign,” Paul said at last.

  Another pause. “Isn’t that an unnecessarily desperate remedy?” remarked David, as if he were talking to a boy. “After all, Deline doesn’t go out a great deal and the chances of your meeting her by accident are fairly slim. What about taking a couple of week’s holiday? I’ll get hold of a car for you.”

  “No, thanks,” Paul answered stiffly. “I’ll work out my notice. How long do you want?”

  David grew coolly angry. “Don’t be a bigger damned idiot than necessary,” he said abruptly. “As soon as Carlsten goes back to England I shall carry on with the plan for a dairy farm. That’s why I’ve been keen for you to stay on here.”

  Lightning played across their features; it made Paul look young and defenceless, but he was obviously no nearer acknowledging in so many words that situation existed between himself and Deline.

  “I don’t think I could ever satisfy you,” he said. “Your standards are too high for me.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Everyone makes mistakes, and until the last week or two you were improving all the time. I know you think I’m not capable of understanding what’s happened to you...”