by Isobel Chace
His eyes were amused, though his face was completely serious.
“Brahim’s trees? I thought they were yours!”
She made a slight face at him and made to get up from the seat, but he pushed her gently back on to it. Her hands tensed and she took a deep breath.
“Where’s Chantal?” she asked.
He didn’t even look particularly surprised that she should ask. “She’s outside, in the car.”
Her eyes dropped.
“I see,” she said.
He smiled.
“Do you? Are you sure?”
There was no need to answer him. She knew only too well that they had travelled up together, and they must have stopped somewhere for the night on the way or Chantal wouldn’t be willing to stay in the car for an instant longer than she could help. No girl would! Perhaps they had even spent two nights on the way.
“Why doesn’t she come in?” she asked crossly.
“Do you really want her to?” he countered.
“No,” she admitted. “But she can’t sit out in the car all day!”
He laughed delightedly.
“That’s what I like best about you,” he told her. “Your invariable calm good sense.”
“You didn’t always think so,” she reminded him. How dared he? Calm good sense indeed! Surely she must have some more romantic qualities!
“My judgment was prejudiced,” he admitted. “And for that I apologise.”
She clenched her hands together.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said.
He reached down and took her hands into both of his.
“Shall we go and get Chantal out of the car?” he suggested. “She is not a very patient waiter.”
It seemed to her that she didn’t have any choice in the matter. She stood up and looked ruefully down at the trails of mud on her clothes. She would have liked to have slipped into the house and have changed her dress before coming face to face with the French girl. She could already imagine the way she would look, immaculate as ever and quite dazzlingly chic.
But for once Chantal looked quite ruffled. Her pale blue eyes were large and tired and there was a frail air about her that was quite new.
Katherine greeted her briefly, without touching her, and led the way slowly into the house.
“I’ll order some cool drinks,” she said.
Dr. Kreistler shook his head.
“Not for me.” He turned to Chantal. “I shall come back for you in about an hour and take you to your train.”
Chantal nodded and bit her lower lip.
“Whatever you say,” she said indifferently.
The doctor bowed slightly to both girls and left the room. Katherine watched him go with a fatalistic feeling of approaching disaster.
“Will you have lemon or orange?” she asked.
“Lemon,” said Chantal.
Katherine rang the bell and gave the order to the servant who hurried into the room to answer it. She had never quite got used to summoning people in this way and she sounded slightly apologetic as she asked for the two drinks. Chantal gave her a scornful look that made her seem much more familiar, and
Katherine sat down abruptly on one of the chairs, realising once again how terribly hot it was and how her clothes were sticking to her back in the most uncomfortable way.
The lemon drinks arrived, the ice clinking against the tall glasses that stood on the tray together with a silver sugar bowl and two abnormally long-handled teaspoons to stir with.
“Did you have a good journey up?” Katherine asked.
Chantal’s face was enigmatic, though she smiled slightly.
“I haven’t been at Sidi Behn Ahmed,” she said. “I’ve been staying in Tunis. Actually I left the day after you did.” She shrugged her shoulders elaborately. “There was nothing to do there, was there? I can’t imagine how you stood it so long all by yourself.”
Katherine’s mouth felt dry and she sipped her drink hastily.
“There is plenty for a nurse to do there. I wasn’t lonely and I felt I was doing a worth-while job — or at least it could have been if someone did it on a more permanent basis.”
“So Peter informed me,” Chantal said dryly. “Twenty-four hours of how popular you were, how hard you worked, and how we had all misjudged you before you arrived were quite enough, let me tell you.”
Katherine didn’t attempt to hide her surprise.
“I expect it was,” she said weakly.
“And so I made Beshir drive me up to Tunis,” Chantal continued. “I didn’t think you’d mind if I kept him to chauffeur me round for a bit. I hardly expected to be dug out of my hotel in the middle of the night and driven here so that I could have the pleasure of apologising to you for my sins! That was Peter’s idea!”
Katherine swallowed hard.
“Apologise for what?” she said stupidly.
“I told him it wasn’t necessary!” Chantal dismissed her contemptuously. “I don’t suppose you even noticed that I didn’t particularly like you. Why should you care?”
Katherine looked amused.
“I got a little worried when you started throwing scorpions around,” she admitted, a little bewildered as to where all this was leading.
Chantal’s pale blue eyes flickered over her.
“How English you are!” she said with icy dislike. “The brave
front, but the womanly tears when there is a man’s shoulder to cry on! Very well, I admit you have won, Nurse Katherine Lane, but I shall never be sorry for anything I have said or done to you. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly.”
Chantal turned on her viciously.
“That’s what I hate about you!” she exclaimed fiercely. “You never say anything. Why don’t you tell me that you hate me too?”
“Because it wouldn’t be true,” Katherine said thoughtfully. “I thought it was for some time, but then I was made to realise it simply wasn’t worth the trouble.” She faced the French girl fearlessly. “I had never met anyone like you before I came to Tunisia, you see. I thought that everyone else would admire the way you dressed as much as I did, and that they wouldn’t notice the unkind things you said to people whom you didn’t think mattered. But I was wrong. I found that they had noticed and that they didn’t particularly care. Why should they? They didn’t have to live with you. But they didn’t like you for it. Somehow it didn’t seem nearly so bad when I realised that everyone else had seen through you too.”
“How dare you?” Chantal spat at her. “How dare you?”
Katherine smiled at her. For the first time in her relationship with Chantal she felt completely master of the situation.
“Well, you did ask,” she said. “Shall we talk about something more pleasant now? Where are you and Peter going when he comes back for you?”
Chantal looked furtively up through her eyelashes.
“Ah! Wouldn’t you like to know? But I’ll leave you to guess. At least Peter will be driving me! And how you wish it were you, don’t you, little Miss Clever?”
Katherine blenched.
“Yes, I do,” she admitted. “I don’t think, after all, that we have anything more to say to one another, have we? I think I’ll go up to my room.” She went out of the room with her head held high, but turned again as she reached the foot of the stairs. “I hope you’ll make Peter very happy,” she said tightly.
Chantal smiled silkily.
“I shall!” she said.
The Arab boy had closed the shutters in Katherine’s room and it was almost in total darkness when she entered it. She threw herself down on the bed and wished she had an electric fan in the ceiling like the ones downstairs. Surely it was impossible for it to get any hotter. The perspiration ran down her face, ruining her make-up, and she heard the first, distant sounds of thunder in the sky. It was going to rain! She could hardly believe it. She had never seen any rain in Tunisia. She tried to imagine the wadis as fast-running rivers, but they obstinately remained the
dried-up river beds she had seen all down the countryside.
She ran to the window and opened it wide, hoping to catch a flash of the lightning as it ripped through the sky. It would be wonderful to feel the rain on her face and be cool again, and it would be so good for the fruit-trees as well. Perhaps it would save those poor, dying trees as she couldn’t believe anything else would.
There was another flash of lightning followed by a crash of thunder that was close enough to be frightening. She turned away from the window and glanced round the now sunlit room. Standing in the middle of the floor was a small pale blue basket, filled to the brim with oddments and crowned with an ornamental five-branch candle. It was one of the marriage baskets she had seen in the souks. For a long moment she stared down at it, wondering how on earth it could have got there. A marriage basket! For her?
Her hands were trembling as she took the things out of it and laid them in a row on the floor in front of her. There was a nightdress and negligee that made Chantal’s look cheap. How had he known about that? she wondered. And a number of different coloured veils that would be ideal for her to wear in the desert. And a couple of boxes of dates identical to the one she had once bought but had never had the courage to offer to him.
She could hear sounds of movement downstairs, but she didn’t stir. She didn’t need to say goodbye to Chantal. Peter would take her to wherever it was she was going and then he would come back. Her eyes took in every detail of the intricate plaiting of the coloured papers that were woven round the five-branched candle. A Tunisian bride would light it on her wedding night and would know that it was keeping the “evil eye” away —
And then he would come back!
Galvanised into sudden action, she tore the pins out of her hair, shook it free so that it cascaded down behind her shoulders, and disappeared into the beautifully appointed bathroom that led off her room.
The dress she chose was not the newest in her wardrobe, but it was a firm favourite, showing off the fairness of her hair to advantage and making her feel at her most attractive. She gazed at herself in the looking-glass for a long moment, wondering whether to put her hair up again or to let it fly free with no more than an Alice band to hold it off her face. She looked younger with it down and more uncertain, but it suited her too in a way that the other style never had. It wasn’t so efficient, or even very practical, but Peter had said that he liked it down. She smiled at herself and her reflection smiled back at her. So she had, after all, washed her hair and put on her prettiest dress.
She heard the car coming up the drive through the now heavy rain. It wasn't the Land Rover. It was a much lighter car and the engine was spluttering as though it would like to stall but didn’t quite dare. The rain must have got into the sparking plugs, Katherine thought. She could imagine it, pouring down from a slate-grey sky and drenching everything beneath it.
She turned on the lights to make the room more cheerful, and they flickered nervously before they came on to their full strength as though they too were a little afraid of the thunder that still rumbled ominously overhead.
Although she was expecting him, it still came as a shock to her when Dr. Kreistler entered the room. She spun round to greet him, but the words died on her lips. He had discarded his mackintosh, but little drops of water flashed like diamonds in his hair and his shoes and socks were soaking wet.
“W-would you like to change?” she asked him abruptly.
He looked impatiently down at his feet.
“Perhaps I’d better,” he sighed. “I seem to be leaving marks on your beautifully polished floors.
“That — that wasn’t why I suggested it,” she said, and blinked at him. The trouble was, she thought, that neither of them knew
where to begin.
“Wasn’t it?”
She went over to him and gave him a slight push towards a chair, going down on her knees to take them off for him.
“Oh, no, you don’t!” he said firmly. “I’m quite capable of taking off my own shoes. If you want to be helpful, you can look in my bag in the hall and find a spare pair.”
She went without a word. He had put his suitcase neatly in a corner together with his medical bag. It was large and shabby and she thought that he must have brought it out of Hungary with him. The locks were stiff and hurt her fingers and he had packed so badly that it was impossible to find anything in it. She scrabbled around in one corner and came up with a single sock that needed darning anyway.
“I suppose you did pack some spare shoes?” she called out to him.
He padded over to her in his bare feet.
“How should I know?” he asked her impatiently. “I was in a hurry. I only caught the plane by the skin of my teeth.” He knelt down beside her, “Here, let me have a look,” he said.
He was so close that she could feel the warmth of his body against her bare arm. Against her will she coloured slightly. He sat back on his heels and put out a hand to touch her hair, feeling for the places that were still slightly damp.
“Have you been out in the rain?” he asked.
She shook her head, wondering that her own knees should have turned to water.
“Of course not!” she said tartly.
He smiled slightly, looking pleased with himself.
“So you did wash it after all,” he said.
She nodded, completely unable to say anything. With a quick movement she jumped to her feet and went back into the other room. She could hear the brisk tap of her heels against the polished tiles and felt like kicking them off so that she would be as barefoot as he. He came after her, a pair of shoes in one hand and his dry socks in the other.
“And you’ve been upstairs?” he prompted her.
She blushed vividly, the hot colour rushing up her cheeks.
“Yes,” she said.
He stood for a moment watching her, and then he sat down and began to put on his shoes and socks.
“And it is a very pretty dress!” he said almost nonchalantly. He tied the second lace with neat, competent fingers and looked up at her, his eyes filled with laughter. “I love you,” he said.
She raised her head a couple of inches. I know, she wanted to say, I saw a basket upstairs; but what actually came out was: “Where did Chantal go?”
His eyebrows rose, giving him a quizzical expression.
“I thought you’d ask that,” he chuckled.
“Why?” she demanded, a little hurt that he should find her so amusing.
“Because —” He paused, choosing his words with care. “Because you are probably the most feminine person I have ever met,” he went on more slowly. “What do you want to know about Chantal, my love?”
She put a hand up to her hair and was mildly surprised to find it hanging down her back instead of in its more usual neat plaits. “I’m not being vulgarly curious,” she told him. “I know you — you liked her —” The words twisted her tongue and she came, helplessly, to a halt. “She said you were going with her!” she burst out.
He didn’t attempt to touch her.
“What exactly do you want to know?” he repeated.
She wanted to know so many things. Her mind went back to the souk in Tunis and Chantal saying, “I buy all my perfume here. Peter gave me the first lot and it has become a tradition now.” And all those many, many other implications that she and Peter were more than friends.
“I want to know where she has gone,” she said simply.
“She has gone to visit a friend of hers in Oran.” He looked down at his neatly manicured hands. “I rather fancy that she will find it more convenient not to return to Tunisia. There is nothing here for her any more. There is no reason why you should continue to support her. In fact you should never have been allowed to get yourself into that position in the first place! Besides, I fancy you will have little need of the estate at Hammamet in the future. I think it would be a pleasant gesture to give it to the government so that it can be divided up amongst people who would make good use
of the land.”
Katherine gave a little gasp.
“Can I do that?” she asked. “And what about Sidi Behn Ahmed?”
He nodded approvingly.
“That also,” he agreed. “We can keep a few hectares of land for our own use, but as for the rest it will be a nuisance. We have other work to do.”
She bit her lip to hide a smile. He had the whole of their future buttoned up, it seemed.
“We?” she asked him gently.
“We!” he agreed firmly. He stood up and pulled her into his arms, looking down straight into her eyes. “I’m afraid I’m not doing this very well,” he said humbly, “but then, you see, I have never proposed to anyone before.”
She buried her face into his shoulder.
“You haven’t now!” she teased him.
She could feel him laughing against her.
“Indeed I have! I have gone further,” he retorted, “I have even brought you the wedding presents!”
Her eyes mocked him gently.
“I know,” she said. “I found them upstairs. Oh, Peter, you should have said something! I thought you were in love with Chantal and were glad to have her to yourself when I came back here. I was so miserable that even Madame Verdon was worried about me!”
“So she told me. My foolish love, did you really think I could prefer anyone else after I had got to know you?”
“Yes, I did!” she assured him.
“But not any longer?”
She shook her head, and a new urgency came into his hands as he drew her closer, kissing her first on the mouth and then her eyes and her hair and her mouth again until they were both breathless.
“It is terrible that you should have been unhappy,” he said at last. “But I had first to make sure that Chantal would follow her brother’s so excellent example and leave us in peace. That was soon done, but then I was stuck down in the south until I could find someone who would stand in for me. Tomorrow we must catch the plane back to Gafsa. That’s all the time I have. We shall be married in Sidi Behn Ahmed, yes?”
“Yes,” she said meekly. “Oh, Peter, I love you so much.”
He smiled.
“But you must be quite sure, my love,” he insisted gently. “I am twice a foreigner to you. I am a Hungarian refugee who has taken Tunisian nationality. There will be few English people for you to talk to.”