The House of the Scissors

by Isobel Chace

  “Have—have you been here long?” she asked in a polite voice.

  “It’s seemed like days, but in actual fact I guess it’s only a couple of hours,” Sandra answered. “I thought you were never going to wake up!”

  “I’m sorry,” Arab said.

  Sandra shrugged. “Why? You could probably do with it. Lucien said you were feeling lousy last night—”

  “Last night?”

  Sandra laughed, managing not to crease her face despite what seemed to be genuine amusement. “That’s right! This is Monday morning.” She admired her immaculately enamelled nails without looking at Arab. “That’s what I’m doing here,” she said.

  Arab blinked. She watched the older woman cautiously, wondering what it was that she wanted. Sandra glanced up from her nails and smiled briefly.

  “I’m not going to pretend that I like asking you this,” she went on. “I don’t. But you seem to have a way with you as far as the people you work with are concerned. Sammy would just love to use me, but for some reason he seemed to think you ought to be consulted, or something.”

  “I see,” said Arab.

  “I thought you might. Though it can’t matter to you either way! I want your job, Miss Burnett, and I intend to have it!”

  Arab fiddled idly with the edge of her sheet. “Oh?” she murmured.

  “It’s just what I need at this moment. I threw up my job in Nairobi. It was quite impossible to get anyone to see sense about anything there. One would think that there weren’t any Europeans left to buy any clothes, to hear them talk! And do you see me selling anything but what might be a Paris model, if you didn’t look too closely, of course?”

  Arab looked at her visitor with a certain amusement. “These are not Paris models, Miss Dark. They’re strictly off-the-peg models for the mass market. Sammy does the brochures for them and it was he who thought a glamorous background would be a good selling point. The magazines use them, so why not us?”

  Sandra lent forward in her chair, her eyes shining. “But Sammy does other stuff—I’ve looked him up. This would only be the beginning!”

  “A lot of models have thought the same!” Arab warned her.

  “Including you?”

  “Including me,” Arab admitted. “I don’t aspire to the heights of the profession, or anything like that, but I want to do a bit better than I have so far. I thought Sammy would help me do that. I didn’t know then that I was only filling in for someone else.”

  “That’s what he told me,” Sandra agreed. Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Now I’m not so sure. He was in quite a way when he heard about your ankle. It made me wonder if you weren’t more important to him than I’d thought.”

  The enquiry in her voice made Arab wince. “Nobody is important to Sammy,” she said.

  “My dear,” Sandra drawled, “he’s a man, isn’t he? Or didn’t it occur to you to play that particular trump?”

  Arab flushed with embarrassment. “I—I—” she stammered.

  “Oh, come on! You’re not so backward when it comes to Lucien!” Sandra exclaimed. “I suppose you think it’s different because you’re in love with him! Well, I don’t mind admitting that I’m in love with him too, and can have him any time I choose, but that won’t stop me stringing Sammy along.” She laughed softly. “Have I shocked you? How deliciously young you are, my dear! But it puts you at rather a disadvantage as far as Lucien is concerned, doesn’t it? I’m afraid he’ll always see you as Hilary’s little friend!”

  “I don’t think that’s any business of yours!” Arab declared. She longed to escape from this whole distasteful conversation, but there was no way out. She was tethered to her bed by her ankle and the weakness that was the aftermath of fever. She had never realised before how very vulnerable one was in bed in the face of an unwelcome visitor and she cast Sandra a resentful look, wondering if she could tell her that she wanted to visit the bathroom and would need Ayah’s help to get there.

  “Oh, I think it is,” Sandra contradicted, looking amused. “All Lucien’s reactions are my business, my dear. The Darks and the Manners are meant for each other! Ruth and my brother, me and Lucien—it’s always been like that!”

  Arab tried to think of some way to turn the conversation. “How did your brother die?” she asked.

  “Unnecessarily,” Sandra returned. “He went up to the Northern Frontier to investigate some incident and was killed in a border skirmish. He didn’t have to go! It wasn’t as though it was his responsibility! If it had happened before Independence, I’d feel differently about it, I suppose, but why defend something that doesn’t belong to one?”

  “Have you lived out here long?”

  “Long? My dear girl, we’re third generation out here. Our parents were born here and so were we. We’d never live anywhere else!”

  Arab moved restively in her bed. “Then you don’t want to go back to England with Sammy?”

  Sandra shrugged. “I might. It depends what he offers me. I wouldn’t mind going home for a bit. Lucien has a house somewhere in England. It’s been in his family since Tudor times and he likes to spend some of his time there. This time, though, he seems to have got stuck out here for longer than usual. It’s this boring book he’s writing. He spends his life researching it and talks of nothing else! I shall be glad when he’s finished it and is snapped up by some university or other for a spell of teaching.”

  Arab was interested despite herself. She had never thought of Lucien as a teacher. “What does he teach?” she asked.

  Sandra giggled. “The poor dear is rather limited really. He was offered a chair in African Studies somewhere in America, but he’d only just finished setting up some school or other in London. Drives him mad when it’s said that Africa has no history! But not every university seems to agree with him!”

  “The African universities ought to!” Arab maintained, distressed by Sandra’s patronising tone.

  “They do! But I don’t encourage him to talk in that direction. It’s time he made some real money, and that’s to be got in America. If you get the opportunity, dear, try putting that into his head, will you?”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it!” Arab retorted. “I know nothing about it, and nor do you! Besides, I don’t think money matters much to Lucien!”

  “Too, too ingenuous, aren’t you?” Sandra answered. “Money matters to us all. It will matter to Lucien all right once he’s married to me. I’m an expensive kind of person to have around!”

  Depression descended on Arab like a black cloud. It was the malaria, she told herself, not believing a word of it. She knew what was the matter with her. She was jealous! Stupidly, humiliatingly jealous! Sandra was right about one thing, though, she was ingenuous—ingenuous enough to have believed that Lucien had been genuinely interested in her, when all the time he was planning to marry Sandra Dark. And much joy he would have of that! She couldn’t believe that anyone as fine as Lucien would fall for the dross of Sandra Dark. But he must have done. Nobody, not even Sandra, talked about marriage to a man unless they had been given some reason to do so.

  “How soon do you expect to be getting married?”

  Sandra spent a long moment admiring her own ankles, wiggling her feet back and forth. “We’ll wait for Ruth to come back,” she said. She stood up unhurriedly, smoothing her skirt down over her hips. “I take it, then, that you have no objection to my taking over your job?”

  Arab raised a feeble smile. “Take what you like?”

  Sandra raised her eyebrows and then, as hastily, lowered them again, smoothing out her brow with her fingers. “Thanks, I will,” she said. “But it’s nice to know that I have your permission.” She glanced casually at Arab’s angry face. “It may not be tactful to tell you so, my dear, but you’re not looking your best at the moment. I didn’t like the way Lucien looked at you when you were all dressed up in that golden frock at the dance, but I don’t think I have anything to worry about after all, do you?”

  Arab bravely met
the naked dislike in the other woman’s eyes. “Not a thing!” she muttered. “But you already know that!”

  “I just wanted to make quite, quite sure,” Sandra purred. She went over to the door and opened it, a slight smile on her lips. “Oh, by the way, Lucien asked me to take your passport downstairs to him. Jill couldn’t find it among your things at the hotel.”

  “It’s in my handbag,” Arab told her. “What does he want it for?”

  “Don’t ask me!” Sandra exclaimed. “You’ll have to ask him—when you next see him. I hear you’ve forbidden him to come into your bedroom!”

  Arab reached out for her handbag, found her passport and flipped it on to the end of the bed.

  “I don’t want to see anyone!” she said.

  But Sandra only smiled all the more. “I’ll tell him,” she promised. “I won’t forget!” She picked up the passport and went out the door, closing it behind her with a firm, decisive snap.

  It was two days before Arab was allowed downstairs. Her ankle hampered all her movements, making her awkward and fractious and quite unlike her usual self. Lucien had offered to carry her down the stairs, but she had flatly refused his help, preferring to hang on to the banisters with grim determination, lowering herself slowly down, one step at a time.

  “Where are you going to sit?” Hilary demanded, charging up and down the stairs beside her. “You can lean on me! I won’t let you fall—I promise I won’t!”

  “Thank you,” said Arab, sounding much more grateful than she felt. “I feel so weak at the knees!”

  Lucien watched her as she transferred one hand from the banisters to Hilary’s willing shoulder, pausing for an anxious moment while she regained her precarious balance.

  “This is ridiculous!” he exclaimed. He pushed Hilary to one side and swept Arab up into his arms, striding down the stairs with a set look on his face. “Independence is all very well,” he added grimly, “but you don’t begin to know your own limitations, little one!”

  Arab hugged herself closer to him, telling herself that if her breathing was peculiar, it had nothing to do with Lucien’s proximity.

  “Don’t you dare drop me!” she cautioned him. “You told me that when you frightened me, I’d stay frightened, and I am! Mind my foot!”

  “Be still!” he retorted. He smiled straight into her eyes. “And you’re not frightened! Contrary to whatever that vivid imagination of yours tells you, I don’t go round frightening young women, not even those I have designs on!”

  “Hush,” she said, blushing. “Sandra will hear you!”

  “Let her hear! Let the whole world hear!” He put her down carefully, keeping an arm about her to help her into the sitting room. “Are you coming out into the garden to talk to me?” he suggested.

  “No,” she said. “No! I want to watch them working. I—I suppose they are here?”

  “Yes, they’re here.” Lucien did not sound pleased and Arab’s heart sank. She wished she could explain that she would prefer to be in the garden with him, but she didn’t trust herself anywhere within his vicinity. She had only to look at him, to want to be in his arms and to feel his lips on hers. And he didn’t mean it! He was going to marry Sandra and his kisses rightfully belonged to her!

  “Has Sammy said anything about my going back to England?”

  The sardonic look in his eyes unsettled her. “Not to me,” he replied. “You’d better ask him about it.”

  “Yes, I will. Only—” she gnawed at her lower lip—“you have my passport. What did you want it for?”

  He frowned and she wished she hadn’t asked. “Oh yes,” he said, “Sandra brought it down the other day. I’d forgotten all about it.”

  Then why had he asked for it? She gave him a puzzled look, but she said nothing more. Instead she began to hobble through the door, making her way out to the old ruined harem quarters, where the photography sessions were taking place. Hilary supported her with more energy than flair on one side and, on the other, she grasped at the wall, a chair, or whatever was closer, grunting with the exertion.

  Jill saw her the moment she turned the corner. “Arab!” she shrieked. “I didn’t know you were coming downstairs today. My poor love, has it been very bad?”

  “Well,” Arab smiled, “it hasn’t been good!”

  Jill seized her arm and placed it about her neck, almost carrying her over to the nearest chair. “I suppose you’re going to stay and watch for a while?”

  Arab nodded. “How’s it going?”

  Jill screwed up her face warningly. “My lady has talent,” she answered. “I’m not sure what she has talent for yet, but—oh, boy!”

  Arab laughed, feeling suddenly very much better. “You don’t like her!” she accused.

  “Honey, do you?”

  “Lucien does,” Arab said before she could stop herself. Jill whistled softly under her breath. “It’s possible Sammy will take her back to England with him,” she murmured. “He’s busy making up his mind about her—”

  “But surely he knows whether she can model or not by this time?”

  “Model, she certainly can,” Jill answered. “Even when I do manage to get between her and the lens, I’m definitely put in the shade! Sammy’s interest is—less exclusive, shall we say?”

  “Oh,” said Arab, and then again, “oh!”

  “Exactly, my pet. Give her her due, she never does or says a thing out of place, but she has poor Sammy running round in circles.” Jill looked mournful. “I’m afraid she has cut you out there, honey. Do you think you can bear it?”

  “Jill!” Arab reproved her. “As a matter of fact,” she added, “I thought you liked her. I—I didn’t know that Sammy hadn’t wanted to bring me out here. Thank you for saying you would look after me. If I’d known—”

  “You might have listened to Auntie, instead of thinking she was being stuffy.”

  Arab chuckled. “Stuffy isn’t the first adjective that occurs to me when I think of you,” she retorted. “Seriously though, it was nice of you, Jill.”

  Jill shrugged her shoulders. “Why not? I like you, honey.” She glanced at her watch. “Good lord, is that the time? I must go and change. Keep laughing, sweetie, it suits you!”

  Although Arab had Hilary to talk to at intervals during the morning, she was soon bored watching the others work. For a while she interested herself in seeing how Sandra worked. She was a great deal more professional than she had supposed. Arab thought sourly that there would be far fewer retakes than there would have been if she had been the model. Jill had been right, too, when she had said that Sandra hogged the camera. She was clever about it, but one ended up looking at her and not at Jill, or the clothes they were both supposed to be showing. Sammy was ecstatic when he saw the results. “Take a rest, girls. We’ll have another go later,” he croaked at them. Then he came over and sat beside Arab.

  “I’m sorry, Sammy, to have let you down,” Arab began to apologise.

  “Don’t, don’t. Am I to be angry when you’ve done me such a good turn? This Sandra could be built up into something great! What d’you think of my taking her back to England? She’s a bit old for a beginner.”

  “She has something—”

  “Something better than youth! Duckie, that’s exactly what I’m telling myself! You see it too?”

  Arab thought of Lucien, stifling her conscience with difficulty. “She’s very lovely,” she said stiffly.

  Sammy flung his fat arms about her and kissed her on the cheek. “I knew you’d see it my way! Well, well, back to work!”

  Arab stared after him as he hurried away from her. This was a new Sammy, she thought, one she hadn’t seen before. She felt oddly nostalgic for the old Sammy, the morose Sammy she had known for so long. It was something else that she couldn’t like Sandra for; she had no right to use people for her own advantage, even when it was someone like Sammy, who had been using people himself and throwing them away when he had finished with them for longer than Arab had been alive.


  She sighed, now thoroughly bored, and wondered what Lucien was doing. She was all the more surprised, therefore, to see him coming across the old, weed-covered bathing pool.

  “Had enough?” he asked her abruptly.

  She bit her lip and nodded. “It’s dull having nothing to do,” she explained. “I feel utterly useless!”

  His dark eyes observed her quietly. “Hilary tells me you used to work in an office?”

  She was startled. “I took up modelling to escape from it,” she said dryly.

  “But you do type?”

  She nodded again. “Yes. I’m not bad at shorthand either.”

  “Good,” said Lucien. “You can start work for me this afternoon. If you’ll come now, I’ll tell you what I want you to do.”

  Arab could only wonder at her own meekness. She lumbered eagerly to her feet, excitement and interest fountaining up within her, and when he held out his hand to her, she took it gladly, hobbling along beside him with a pleased smile on her face.

  CHAPTER NINE

  LUCIEN was a fierce taskmaster. Arab had never worked so long and so consistently at anything before. Every moment that she was not either eating or resting, she seemed to be pounding the typewriter, transcribing Lucien’s illegible scrawl into a series of neatly typed scripts of articles, one or two chapters of the book he was writing, and page upon page of closely written notes on all aspects of East African history.

  There was no time for her to fret, and she was too proud to ask Sammy if he had arranged anything about her flying home. The days came and went and she applied herself wholeheartedly to the work in hand. Then one day Jill came out into the garden, where Arab was working, and threw herself down on the coarse grass beside her.

  “Only two more days—think of that, Arab! I can’t wait to get back to England and home! How about you?”

  Arab stopped typing. “Only two more days! Are you sure?” Her brow creased into a worried frown. “No one has said anything to me. I was waiting for Sammy to broach the subject—because of Sandra—”