The House of the Scissors

by Isobel Chace

  He grinned. “I have to admit that my kind of work doesn’t make one a weight-lifting champion, but I’ll manage somehow.” He swung her up into his arms and she was immediately afraid that he would find out how badly she wanted to stay in his arms for ever.

  “I’m too heavy,” she said, her voice shaking.

  He set her down on the crumbling wall of the house. “I’m afraid you are for me to carry you that way for very far. I’ll have to use what I believe is known as a fireman’s lift—”

  “I won’t do it!” she said flatly.

  “Darling, you have no choice.” His amusement was very hard to bear, but before she had the chance to object further, he had grasped her firmly round the waist and had thrown her over his shoulder. “Don’t wriggle, or I’ll drop you!” he warned her.

  “I’m not doing anything!” she wailed.

  He laughed with such a total lack of feeling for her predicament that she took a swipe at him with her closed fist. He responded with a sharp slap on her bottom that brought the tears back into her eyes. “Now will you keep still?” he roared at her.

  She scarcely dared to breathe lest she provoke him further. It was a bitterly uncomfortable journey, with the blood rushing into her head. When she shut her eyes it was a little better. At least she could no longer see the rough ground swaying below her. She tried to ease her weight a little, but Lucien’s hold prevented her, and after a while she gave up the attempt.

  “What about Hilary?” she asked him.

  “I’ll come back for her when I’ve put you in the car.” To her surprise his voice sounded quite normal. She felt quite indignant that she had so little effect on him. He wasn’t even panting!

  “Lucien—”

  “What is it?”

  “I’m sorry to have spoilt everything.”

  He was silent. He must have been walking quicker than she had thought, for a few seconds later they came out of the trees and into the car park. Lucien pulled open the door of the car and lowered her on to the front seat, keeping one hand behind her knee to support her foot until she could ease it into the space in front of her.

  He stood there for such a long moment, looking at her, while she wriggled with embarrassment, uneasily aware that the ready colour was moving like a tidal wave up her face. She refused to meet his eyes, staring down at her fingers as she knotted them together on her knee. He touched her cheek with gentle fingers, turning her face towards him, his lips fastening on hers.

  It was a long kiss. She shut her eyes and put her hands up behind his neck, holding him close. The taste of his mouth was ecstasy and she felt cold and weak when he stood up straight again.

  “You didn’t spoil anything, little one. We’ll find an answer somehow.”

  But she shook her head, determinedly looking the other way as he turned and left her, going back along the path towards the ruined town in search of Hilary.

  Hilary came running back ahead of her uncle. She clambered into the back seat of the car, her eyes dark with concern. “Oh, Arab, how awful for you! Lucien says it hurts like anything and that you’ll have to have your foot in plaster. We can all write our names on it for you. If Mummy were here, she could do a nice drawing as well. She does beautiful drawings of everything in her letters to me. They’re really good, because you can see exactly how the people live, and things like that. Perhaps Lucien would write something in Arabic for you. He could write your name, and his own, and mine as well!”

  “I don’t know that there’s any equivalent of my name in Arabic,” Arab said, wincing away from the pain in her foot.

  “Arabic is written phonetically,” Hilary told her importantly. “Lucien says so. It looks pretty too.”

  “Hadn’t we better wait until she gets the plaster on her foot?” Lucien said firmly, getting into the driving seat.

  “But, Lucien, everybody writes on their plaster when they break something!”

  “She may not have any plaster. She may not have broken anything at all. It might be no more than a bad sprain.”

  Arab bit her lip. She knew that to be wishful thinking and her misery was complete. If it were a sprain, she could go on with her work, taking off the bandage for the few seconds it took for the camera to capture her image. There was no way that a hulking great mass of plaster could be hidden, however, and Sammy would be simply furious!

  The hospital was a small building not far from the harbour. Arab had never noticed it previously. She peered out at it thinking that it looked deserted, when an African in a white, flapping coat came out to the car.

  “Jambo, bwana. Habari!”

  Lucien responded in kind and then went on to tell him about Arab’s ankle. “Is the doctor here?”

  The African shook his head. “It is Sunday,” he answered.

  “We’ll come inside,” Lucien decided, taking command with all his usual arrogance and self-confidence. “I’ll give the doctor a ring from there.”

  The African brought out a wheel-chair that must have been left behind by some patient from a previous century. He grinned happily at Arab, patting the seat invitingly. Arab made a movement towards getting out of the car, but she was saved from having to put her foot to the ground by Lucien lifting her bodily out, placing her gently in the waiting chair. His gentleness made her want to cry again. She bit her lip harder than ever. Whatever was the matter with her, crying at the slightest thing, when she never cried! She despised people who wept all over people! She despised herself for the unaccountable weakness that engulfed her.

  The inside of the hospital was fresh and clean. The African wheeled her in to the surgery, drawing the chair up in front of the window so that she could look out at the flowering shrubs outside. When he went out, he left the door open, and went and stood beside Lucien, anxious to help him as he telephoned for the doctor. Arab listened to the conversation, but she could understand very little of it, for most of it seemed to be in Swahili.

  She turned her head and saw Hilary standing nervously outside.

  “Come in and talk to me,” she suggested to her.

  Hilary came up beside her, lounging against the open window. “I don’t like the smell,” she complained.

  “It’s only disinfectant,” Arab told her.

  Hilary went on twitching her nostrils. Arab wondered if she ought to send the child back to the car, but she didn’t like to interfere when Lucien was there and well able to look after his own niece.

  “Can you understand what they’re saying?” she asked the child, determined to divert her attention.

  Hilary nodded. “The doctor’s coming now,” she answered. “He came from Europe somewhere before the war. His English is funny.”

  His English was decidedly odd. He was a small, round man, with very little hair and a lot of gold in his teeth. But he was kind and his hands, as they examined her ankle, were very gentle.

  “It is break!” he announced, and smiled reassuringly round the room. “There is displaced bone. Necessary put right. Then plaster. I do it now.”

  Lucien’s dark eyes met Arab’s. “Are you ready?” he asked her.

  She swallowed. “Will you hold my hand?” she asked him, not caring if he thought her silly at that particular moment.

  “I’ll hold your hand!” Hilary offered. “And I’ll talk to you all the time.” She put her hand quickly in Arab’s, her face quite as pale and wan as the patient’s. “Lucien can hold your other hand,” she added in a strangled voice.

  The ordeal was over in a matter of minutes. A single wave of pain travelled up Arab’s leg, bringing a gasp to her lips. It subsided into a dull ache and she felt able to breathe again. It wasn’t Hilary who talked to her, though, it was Lucien. He spoke from a great distance and she couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying, which confused her.

  “You’d better come home with us,” he said. “Ayah can look after you.”

  “But I can’t!” she protested.

  His eyes laughed at her. “I’m hardly going to seduce you
, my love, while you’ve got that on your foot. Anyway, Sandra will be back later on. So do you think you could do as you’re told without a long argument?”

  It wouldn’t do, of course, she told herself over and over again. But she was too tired to do anything about it. She felt funny in the head and she was scared that he would leave her alone at the hospital, unable to make herself understood by anyone, if she made a fuss.

  “Yes, Lucien.” Her ears were singing and she felt terribly hot. And then she began to shiver and, once she had started, she couldn’t stop. “I’d like that,” she said.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  HILARY sat on the end of the bed, swinging her legs to and fro as she thoughtfully regarded the occupant Arab pulled herself farther up the bed and frowned.

  “I feel awful!” she announced.

  “You look awful,” Hilary told her. “One always does with malaria. Lucien says you ought to know better at your age than to open the netting windows of your room. It couldn’t make anything any cooler. And why weren’t you taking paludrin?”

  Arab looked suitably chastened. “I forgot,” she admitted. “And I don’t mind saying that if the air-conditioning broke down in Lucien’s room, I bet he’d open everything he could too!”

  “Lucien says you think in a typically female way. In fact that you hardly think at all!”

  Arab gave her a sulky look. “I don’t want to hear what Lucien says!”

  Hilary grinned, rolling her eyes with unwonted drama. “He was simply furious,” she giggled. “Ayah actually ran when she was getting your room ready!”

  Arab’s head fell back against her pillows. The singing in her ears was back again and her head ached. “Must you swing your legs like that?” she complained.

  “Sorry,” said Hilary. She pushed herself farther on to the bed with a magnificent disregard for Arab’s broken ankle. “Lucien says,” she went on happily, “that you probably had fever deliberately so that you wouldn’t have to go home. Did you, Arab? I mean, you could hardly have enticed a tame mosquito into your room, could you?”

  “Certainly not!” Arab said shortly.

  “That’s what I thought,” Hilary said, glad to have her opinion confirmed. “I think he was joking. He looked—well, you know how he looks when he’s got the better of one.”

  Arab did indeed. “Has Sammy been?” she asked.

  Hilary shook her head. “But you don’t have to worry, Arab. Lucien says he’ll attend to him. You have to concentrate on getting better.”

  The tears slipped easily between Arab’s eyelids. Oh no, she thought, I can’t be crying again! She sniffed, searching for a handkerchief, but there was none. This was awful, she thought. She sniffed again, aware of Hilary’s patient sigh and feeling thoroughly shamed by her own weakness.

  “I can’t leave everything to Lucien!” she exclaimed, wildly tossing the pillows about in a more determined search for a handkerchief.

  Hilary uttered a startled gasp and Arab became aware of a handkerchief being held out to her. She snatched at it and blew her nose violently, making her head ache worse than ever.

  “What can’t you leave to me?” Lucien asked her. She raised defiant eyes. “I feel awful!” she wailed. “And don’t tell me I look awful, because Hilary has already told me that! And don’t tell me that it’s all my own fault, because that message has already been relayed to me as well!”

  Hilary had the grace to look ashamed. “I didn’t say it was actually your own fault. I said Lucien had said you ought to know better—”

  Lucien looked down at his niece. “This is the time for you to make a graceful exit,” he told her.

  “No!” Arab exclaimed. “Hilary, don’t go!” But she was too late; the little girl, taking one look at her uncle’s determined expression, had already gone.

  Arab pulled the sheet up to her chin and wished that Lucien would go too. She didn’t have to look at him to see the mocking expression on his face. She clutched his handkerchief in a little ball in one fist, hoping vainly that her moment of tears was over.

  “I want to go back to the hotel!”

  “Having made such a bird’s nest of your bed, I’m not surprised,” Lucien observed.

  “I was looking for a handkerchief.”

  He smiled. “Don’t you ever have one?”

  “S-sometimes.” She settled the sheet more firmly about her. “Paper handkerchiefs are much more hygienic.”

  “Undoubtedly. Shall I get Jill to buy you some when she brings your things over?”

  Arab closed her eyes. “Jill can’t drive,” she said. She opened her eyes again, peering up at him cautiously. “Whose nightie have I got on? Sandra’s?”

  “Sandra’s would be a bit on the big side for you,” he drawled. “That one belongs to Ruth. Any objections?”

  “No.” She blushed. “Is Sandra back from Mombasa?”

  “I expect so. Do you want her to come and see you?”

  Arab shook her head. “I—I didn’t hear her arrive,” she muttered. “I expected to, because I can hear everyone else coming up and down the stairs.”

  “Arabella Burnett!” he mocked her. “Contrary to any illusions you may have of me, Sandra does not live with me, in any sense of the word!”

  “Oh.” Her ears buzzed madly. “I thought she was staying with you,” she tried to explain. “After all, she is a kind of relation, isn’t she?”

  “No, she is not.”

  “But she is!” Arab objected perversely. “She’s your sister’s sister-in-law.”

  Lucien grunted. “Hardly close enough for us to live under the same roof and expect to get away with it! Malindi is a hotbed of gossip, and Sandra is too nice a person not to care what’s said about her.”

  Arab digested this in silence. She came to the conclusion that she didn’t agree with him. Sandra, she thought, would be happy to be talked about if her name were being linked with Lucien’s, especially if it were to lead to a closer relationship. Then another thought struck her. Her eyes widened and she stared up at him. “But I’m staying here!”

  “So you are!”

  “But—but, Lucien—”

  His laughter disconcerted her. “Shall I fix your pillows for you?” he offered solicitously.

  “No! I want to go back to the hotel. Besides,” she added, “I like my pillows this way!”

  He sat down on the edge of the bed. “How’s the ankle?” he asked in quite different, almost businesslike tones.

  “It aches, but it’s not too bad.” She wished the buzzing in her ears would stop. If she felt better, it would be easier to make up her mind what to do, instead of getting in a dither. She had to go back to the hotel! “I’m awfully sorry,” she said aloud, “but I’m afraid I’m going to be sick!”

  Lucien was galvanised into action. “Ayah!” he roared. Arab gulped helplessly. “Ayah!” he shouted again.

  The African woman waddled into the room, grasping her bulky frame somewhere round her middle. When she saw Arab’s face, she bowed her head with laughter, putting her hands up to hide her broad smile.

  “That man not going to hurt you,” she said soothingly. “Come on, Ayah is here. Little while and you feel better! I put this bed to rights and then you sleep.” She frowned at Lucien. “Can’t you see that girl is sick?” she demanded. “Why you come in here and frighten her?”

  Lucien eyed Arab’s face suspiciously. “I frighten her?” he exclaimed. “Don’t you believe it! She’s not frightened of me. She’s frightened of herself and—”

  “Go away!” Arab moaned.

  He bent down and kissed her softly on the lips “Believe me,” he said, “when I want to frighten you, you’ll stay frightened! But you have nothing to be afraid of—at the moment. So you can stop looking like a half-hatched chick and pretty yourself up to receive the doctor. If you want me, you can send for me, otherwise I’ll wait until you feel more yourself. All right?”

  “No, it’s not all right! I can’t stay here! I want to go back to the ho
tel!”

  This final effort was almost too much for Arab. She thought perhaps she really was going to be sick. Her whole body ached and itched with sweat, and yet she was cold and she was starting to shiver again.

  “Lucien,” she whispered, “please don’t go yet. It’s coming back again and I don’t know what to do!”

  He uttered a series of abrupt commands to Ayah, while he himself raised her in the bed, pulling her pillows into place. “Poor little street arab,” he said in a voice so full of amused affection that she was afraid she was going to cry again.

  “I don’t know what’s the matter with me!” she berated herself.

  “Don’t you? Darling, I wish you wouldn’t worry yourself now. Isn’t a dose of malaria and a broken ankle enough to be going on with?”

  “But I don’t want to be a nuisance to you—Sandra might not understand that—that I’m ill. Nor will Jill She doesn’t think I have any sense at all!”

  “Nor have you!” He put a finger across her mouth to prevent her retort. “Jill is very fond of you and I won’t hear a word against her. As a matter of fact, she’s downstairs now. Shall I ask her to stay the night?”

  Arab’s face cleared as if by magic. “Oh yes!” she exclaimed. “Would you mind, Lucien? It would make everything all right!”

  “Everything?” The sardonic expression in his eyes confused her. She began to shiver in earnest and she clenched her teeth together. His concern for her was warming and a wave of weariness swept over her as she tried to concentrate on what he was saying to her. Something about Ayah changing her nightie and her sheets and making her more comfortable. But she didn’t seriously expect to be comfortable ever again. The prickling heat down her back and under her arms made her fractious, and her ankle ached.

  Then, almost before she was aware, she was magically back between dry sheets and her hot pillows were cool and fresh. With a sigh of content, she turned over on her side and slept.

  When she woke, the fever had gone away and she was pleasantly cool all over. She was also very weak, as she discovered when she tried to ease herself against her pillows. It was only then that she became aware of Sandra Dark sitting in the easy chair facing her.