The House of the Scissors

by Isobel Chace

  But there was no time for more questions just then. Lucien parked the car outside the front door and, without waiting to be asked, lifted Arab into his arms and marched into the’ house and up the stairs, putting her down gently on her bed. She opened her mouth to thank him, but he was already gone, shouting for Ayah as he went.

  Ayah came running. Her large, gentle hands eased Arab’s clothes off her aching body.

  “You having a shower, memsahib?”

  Arab grinned at her. “I suppose so. I shall have to get rid of the goat smell somehow.”

  Ayah shook her head. “That be Memsahib Kjana! You find her all right? I tell her something when I get her alone!”

  “No, don’t!” Arab pleaded for the child. “She thought she was doing me a favour. I think she’s going to tell her mother all about it.”

  Ayah looked extremely uncertain. “But I get into bad trouble! She very naughty girl!”

  Arab stepped under the shower, rejoicing in the feel of the cool water on her hot, prickly flesh. It was a bit awkward because she had to try and keep the plaster dry by sticking her foot out at an angle, but anything was worth the sheer bliss of the water running over her. She was just about to step out again, taking care not to slip on the wet floor, when Ayah advanced towards her, a shampoo in one hand, and set about washing her hair with an energy that left Arab as limp as a worn-out rag.

  “Surely I don’t smell as badly as that!” she objected in muffled tones as her head was seized and pushed firmly under the shower.

  “No, it ain’t that you smell bad, but I have the shampoo right here!” Ayah responded, with all the confidence of the universal nanny. “You feel better when you good and clean.”

  The funny thing was that she did. She sat up in bed with her pillows fluffed up behind her and hoped that somebody would remember to bring her some food. She was starving! It was quite indecent for anyone to be as miserable as she was and yet be hungry, but she couldn’t help it. She kept looking at her watch, trying to make the time go faster, but the hands crawled round until at last it was nearly eight o’clock and she knew that supper had to be soon.

  A faint knock at the door brought a quick “Karibu” from her. Ruth pushed open the door and advanced a few steps into the room.

  “You weren’t asleep, were you?”

  Arab looked up eagerly. “No, of course not.” She smiled sheepishly. “To tell you the truth I was hoping that someone was going to bring me some food.”

  Ruth chuckled. “I have. I left it on the landing while I made sure that you were ready to receive it. We’ve already had ours, but I thought I’d come up for a while and talk to you while you have yours.” She went out again and came back with a heavily-laden tray. “I’m glad to hear you’re hungry,” she went on approvingly. “I thought my little daughter had reduced you to a frazzle.”

  “I must be resilient,” Arab smiled.

  “You need to be with Hilary around. Arab, I don’t believe in apologising for other people, not even one’s children, but I’ve had the whole story from Hilary and I’d like you to believe that she didn’t mean any harm.” Arab blushed, glad that she could hide behind her dinner tray. “I was rather touched,” she said gruffly.

  Ruth’s sharp eyes rested for an instant on the younger girl’s face. “If I were another kind of mother, I think I’d be quite jealous of the friendship between you and Hilary.” Her eyes danced as they met Arab’s astonished gaze. “Oh, it’s all right, I’m not! Only it has made me think. My work takes me to the back of beyond quite a lot and I don’t really like leaving Hilary, though there’s no problem all the time she can stay with Lucien. What I hadn’t realised was how much it worried her that Lucien might marry someone she didn’t like.” She broke off, shrugging her shoulders.

  “Sandra,” Arab put in dryly.

  Ruth smiled. “Yes. Sandra.” She was silent for a long moment. “I don’t know how Lucien feels about Sandra,” she said at last. “But I do know my sister-in-law. She’s a few years older than Lucien and she certainly wouldn’t want to be reminded of that—ever! So I asked her what she did intend to do with her life.” She was quiet again, staring thoughtfully at Arab’s plate. “I thought I’d tell you what she said, but I don’t want to seem like an interfering busybody. She says she plans to be the next Mrs. Sammy Silk!”

  “No!” gasped Arab.

  Ruth nodded slowly. “I knew she had a yen that way, but I had to be sure. It was odd, and rather sad, to see Sandra sizing up her chances with real humility. Sammy, it seems, is an unknown quantity.”

  Arab felt suddenly quite gay. “Jill says he’s dotty about her!” she said with satisfaction.

  Ruth looked amused. “What a pity we couldn’t try out Hilary’s potion on him!” she joked. “It might have worked!”

  Arab sniffed. “Unlikely!” she opined.

  “You’re good with Hilary,” Ruth said suddenly. “She actually understood what you said about Lucien having to make his own choice, though I’m afraid she still feels a little push in the right direction would help matters along. She asked me to give you the love potion, just in case you had second thoughts about it! She’d have come herself, but she has been put to bed by an irate Ayah.”

  Arab accepted the small package, opening it immediately because her curiosity was thoroughly aroused as to what the mixture could consist of. She smelt it cautiously and was revolted.

  “Goodness!” she said. “It’s powerful stuff!”

  “I think Hilary would expect something pretty powerful for five shillings!” Ruth remarked with a laugh.

  “It’s disgusting!” Arab announced. “Have a sniff?”

  Ruth made a face at the powder. “I hope you’re not going to use it,” she said. “I’m rather fond of my brother, and I prefer to have him alive!”

  Arab’s hands shook. She put the potion down on her bedside table before Ruth should notice. “I don’t seem to be quite as hungry as I thought I was,” she said. “It’s been a long day!”

  But Ruth was not so easily diverted. “Shall I send Lucien up to say goodnight?” she asked, as she reached for Arab’s tray.

  “No!” Arab blenched. “No,” she said more normally. “Ayah insisted on washing my hair and I feel like a half-drowned rat still. Besides—”

  Ruth looked enquiringly at her.

  “I don’t want him to feel responsible for me. He carries on as if I had no mind of my own. He treats me as if I were Hilary’s age!” She heaved a sigh. “Sometimes I wish I were!” she added.

  Ruth smiled at her affectionately. “Lucien is more observant than you suppose,” she said. “But I understand, love. He’s a bossy brute where all his womenfolk are concerned, only Hilary and I seem to like it!” She went towards the door. “Goodnight, Arab, and thanks for rescuing my offspring.”

  “Think nothing of it,” Arab answered. “Goodnight” She lay quite still for a long time after Ruth had gone, watching a moth that was flying round her bedside light intent on suicide. It made a flicking noise every time it hit the shade, but it still came back to the light.

  Supposing, she thought, that Sandra did marry Sammy Silk. And supposing that Lucien found that he didn’t mind as much as he had thought he would. Supposing, just supposing, that he turned to her with marriage in mind, she would fly into his arms and nothing would stop her.

  She turned her thoughts away from Lucien, settling herself down to sleep with determination, but she had never felt less sleepy. Then she sat straight with a bang, knocking her book off the bed on to the floor. Why had Lucien written to her parents? And why had he wanted them to meet his family? She lay down again, shivering with an unexpected and unknown excitement. She had to sleep because she couldn’t wait for tomorrow to come, tomorrow and Lucien.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  BUT in the morning Ruth insisted that Arab should have her breakfast in bed and it was nearly lunchtime when she finally got dressed and went downstairs, clutching on to the banisters in lieu of a crutch. Havin
g gained the sitting room, she sank into the nearest chair, listening to the voices of Hilary and Lucien as they floated in to her from the garden. After a few minutes though she had caught her breath and she went outside to join them in the shade of the trees.

  Hilary danced over to her immediately. “You can have my chair,” she offered. “I don’t want to sit down any more.”

  Arab thanked her demurely. She had dressed with enormous care, choosing a light green dress with puritan collar and cuffs. In it she looked cool and fresh, and anyway, it made a change from her jeans. But as soon as she met Lucien’s mocking gaze, she knew exactly why she had chosen that particular dress and, worse, she knew that he knew it too. It was a dress which stressed her feminine appeal and left no doubt that she was a fully-grown woman.

  Hilary draped herself over the back of Arab’s chair. “Did Mummy give it to you? Have you used it yet? Have you, Arab?”

  “No. I told you, I’m not going to!”

  Hilary looked sulky. “I thought you might. The coffee tasted funny at breakfast time and I thought—”

  Arab laughed. “That I’d been creeping round the house at crack of dawn—with this?” She pointed to her broken ankle. “It takes me a good ten minutes to get downstairs, I’ll have you know!”

  Hilary sighed. “I’d do it for you, but it might not work then.” She thought for a moment. “It’s your birthday present, you know, because I can’t afford to get you anything else, so I do think you might use it!”

  Lucien smiled across at his niece. “What present is this?”

  Hilary instantly became more cautious. “It’s a secret,” she said, “between Arab and me.”

  Lucien’s amused gaze swung on to Arab’s face. “I see,” he drawled. “I suppose you bought it yesterday?”

  “Yes, of course,” Hilary nodded. “I went on the bus.” Arab cast her a quick look of warning, but the child paid no attention to her. “I like going on the bus.”

  “How did you get home?” Lucien asked.

  Hilary licked her lips. “Mummy knows all about it,” she said.

  Arab stirred restively under Lucien’s interested gaze. “Will—will you drive me to the airport some time?” she asked him. “I want to enquire about when I can get home to England.”

  “No, I won’t!” he said shortly. “Well, Hilary?”

  The child capitulated. “Arab came and got me,” she admitted.

  “Before lunch?”

  Hilary shook her head. “There wasn’t a bus coming the other way,” she explained. “I didn’t know what to do, though they were all very kind and nice and one of the witchdoctor’s wives gave me a sweet potato to eat.”

  Lucien didn’t look at all angry. “Didn’t you get any lunch?” he enquired sympathetically.

  “No. I didn’t get any tea either, because Arab insisted that we rushed to the airport, and then Jacques was being silly and he made her kiss him because he’d driven her round looking for me—”

  “Really?” Lucien drawled. “Why didn’t you get Jill to drive you?” he demanded of Arab.

  Her face flamed. “Jill doesn’t drive,” she answered uncomfortably. If she had been normally fleet of foot, she would have run away then, leaving Hilary to face her uncle on her own. But her foot tied her to her seat and the only weapon that was left to her was her tongue. “As Hilary said, your sister knows all about it, so I don’t see that it’s any business of yours!” she declared.

  Lucien merely grinned. “I’m making it my business. I’m very interested in this French boy-friend of yours. I thought you were old enough to deal with him?” he added slyly.

  “I am!”

  “It doesn’t look much like it! When are you twenty-one?”

  “You know perfectly well!” Arab snapped. “If you won’t drive me to the airport, I’ll ask Ruth if she will. I intend to spend my birthday in England!” She very nearly added ‘so there!’, but the last thing she wanted was to give him an opening so that he could accuse her of childishness, so she restrained herself, contenting herself with glaring at him with as much dignity as she could manage under the circumstances.

  Lucien got leisurely to his feet. He came over to Arab, imprisoning her by leaning a hand on either arm of her chair.

  “When you’re twenty-one—” he began.

  “I’ll be in England!” she said faintly.

  “No, my darling little street arab, you’ll be here with me, whatever you like to think.” He ducked his head and kissed her briefly on the mouth. “Well?”

  Arab heard Hilary’s happy chuckle beside her and her heart missed a beat. “When I’m twenty-one I still won’t have an affair with you!” she said desperately.

  He laughed. “Don’t be too sure of that!” he whispered, and he kissed her again, a fleeting, tantalising kiss that made her want him more than ever.

  “I’m quite sure,” she replied.

  “Such confidence!” he teased her. “Will you be so cool and sure of yourself when I take you to see the Giriama dancers tonight?”

  “T—tonight?”

  He stood up straight, ruffling her hair as he did so.

  “Tonight,” he said solemnly. “You’re near enough to twenty-one!”

  It was inevitable that Hilary wanted to go too. She did everything she could to persuade her uncle, even offering to tell him what her present to Arab had been, but he would not be moved.

  “I think you’re mean!” she told him at the lunch table.

  Lucien made a face at her. “This is something you’ve gone to a lot of trouble to help along,” he smiled. “Why try and spoil it now?”

  Hilary gave him a puzzled look. “But I don’t want you to go by yourselves!” she objected. “Why can’t Mummy and I come?”

  Lucien laughed out loud. “Because I’m going to steal your present and turn the tables on Arab!”

  Hilary’s eyes widened. “You know what it is!” she accused him.

  “It won’t work for you,” Arab assured him blithely, not knowing whether it would or not. “And I wouldn’t stoop so low—”

  “Only because you don’t have to!” he retorted, amused by this display of spirit. “You use a different alchemy, like a pretty dress and a new lipstick.”

  “I haven’t got a new lipstick!” Arab denied, but she blushed all the same, remembering how Hilary had told her the first time they had met, that Lucien didn’t like women to wear trousers! It was an uncomfortable thought, that he knew she had worn this particular dress for him.

  Hilary, who had been silent during this exchange, gave a sudden whoop of laughter. “I don’t mind not coming after all!” she announced. “Mummy and I can go some other time.”

  “Oh, but—” Arab objected. “But—”

  Ruth’s eyes twinkled with amusement. “I really believe my daughter is learning a little tact,” she observed. “You’re surely not going to spoil it, Arab?”

  “Arab will do as she’s told,” Lucien cut in. “Methinks she protests too much anyway!”

  “And I think you’re quite beastly!” Arab told him, temper coming to the aid of her stuttering tongue.

  His eyebrows shot up. “Do you now?” he drawled. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you, my love, that a spoonful of honey catches more flies than a whole barrel of vinegar?”

  “Who wants to catch flies?” she retorted.

  Hilary gurgled with laughter. “He means himself!” she explained to Arab. “Don’t you want to catch him?”

  “No, I do not! Why should I want to? All he ever does is make personal remarks and work me to death! It will be a holiday, being back in England. My mother will nurse me back to my usual rude health, giving me my breakfast in bed—”

  “You had breakfast in bed today!” Hilary interrupted, frowning.

  “And my friends will all be glad to see me,” Arab went on breathlessly, not daring to stop. “They don’t care what I wear! And they all agree that my hair is auburn. They even respect my opinions about—things!”

  �
��What things?” Lucien taunted.

  Ruth gave them both a confused look. “But isn’t your hair auburn?” she asked Arab.

  “Of course it is!” Arab declared. “Only your daughter says it isn’t red enough to be auburn, while your brother—” She cast him a look of burning indignation—“says it’s dull copper!”

  “To match your temper,” he added lazily. “You’ve forgotten that bit!”

  “I have not!” She broke off, hotly embarrassed that she had revealed how well she remembered every word he had said to her. “It isn’t in the least bit funny!” she went on in the face of Ruth’s laughter. “I want to go home!”

  Lucien’s eyes filled with amusement. “Do you?” he mocked. “What about my notes that you haven’t finished yet?”

  “There you are!” Arab declared triumphantly. “I knew you only wanted me here because I can type!”

  “It’ll give you something to do this afternoon,” Lucien agreed promptly. “It will keep you from missing me while I’m away.”

  “Away?” she repeated, fighting the tide of dismay that rose within her and which she knew was, humiliatingly, reflected on her face.

  Laughter danced in his eyes. “I have to get the tickets for tonight—and something else. Can you bear it?”

  Arab lifted her head and looked him straight in the face. “Easily!” she boasted.

  In fact the afternoon passed slowly. She worked on Lucien’s notes and was intrigued to discover that the Assyrian horn of power had had the same significance amongst the first rulers of the East African coast. There was an ivory horn extant in Lamu, and one in Zanzibar that had belonged to the African ruler, long before the coming of the Arab Sultan. It was strange to think of the various strands that had gone to make up the ancient trading world, and which ones existed now, while others had long since fallen into decay.

  But even her interest in Lucien’s work was dulled by the long wait for the evening to come. The pile of neatly-typed sheets of paper grew at her elbow, but her heart was not in it. Not even a reference to Cheng Ho could rouse her from the feeling of sheer panic she had every time she thought of Lucien.