by Anne Mather
‘Nicolas Freeleng!’ The change in Elizabeth’s demeanour was startling. ‘Charles’s boss?’
‘Well, if he works for Nicolas Freeleng, yes, I suppose that’s who it is.’
‘Heavens!’ Elizabeth tugged at her hair in an agony of despair. ‘Oh, Caroline darling! Help me! Help me, please. You can’t—you simply can’t go out and tell him I’m not even dressed yet!’
‘All right.’ Caroline looked round. ‘What do you want me to do?’
Elizabeth began pouring water into the basin on a washstand exactly like the one in Caroline’s bedroom. She waved a careless hand in the direction of her suitcases which had been opened the night before but the contents of which were simply strewn half in and half out.
‘Find me something to wear, darling. Anything will do. That green linen—yes, that’s the one. Undo the buttons for me, there’s a love. I must just put on a little make-up.’
‘I didn’t bother,’ remarked Caroline, automatically taking things out of the suitcases and placing them neatly in the drawers of a small chest. ‘You’ll find the heat will cake any foundation within minutes.’
Elizabeth grimaced. ‘My skin isn’t as young as yours, Caroline.’
‘You’re only six years older than I am, Elizabeth.’
‘Six years!’ The older woman wrinkled her nose. ‘Darling, when you get to thirty, those six years can seem a lifetime.’
Elizabeth finally emerged, small and delicate, in the attractive green linen, making Caroline more than ever conscious of the disparities between them. She felt tall and ungainly, all arms and legs in her brief shirt and shorts, totally unaware that her body was smoothly rounded and that she possessed a natural elegance which Elizabeth could never hope to achieve. Even so, no one would have guessed that only fifteen minutes earlier Elizabeth had been morose and dishevelled, reluctant to even make the effort to dress. Now she positively sparkled, her smile well in evidence as she shook hands with her husband’s employer and spoke affectionately to the children.
‘Ask Thomas for some coffee, Caroline, will you?’ she suggested, after the initial formalities were over, and Caroline made a casual movement of her head before going to do her bidding. She understood that Elizabeth wanted to speak to her visitor alone, and while Caroline was treated as an equal on most planes, this was one occasion when the other woman wanted to show her authority.
Thomas smiled his usual acquiescence, and then said: ‘Mrs. Lacey not wanting shower now, miss?’
Caroline shook her head. ‘No,’ she agreed. ‘Not now.’
Deciding to go back to her room to finish her packing, she was surprised a few minutes later when Miranda came looking for her.
‘Mummy wants you, Caroline,’ she said. ‘Can you come?’
Caroline rose to her feet. ‘I suppose so. Hasn’t Thomas given them their coffee yet?’
‘Oh, yes. But he brought three cups and Mr. Freeleng asked where you were.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Caroline digested this thoughtfully. ‘All right, Miranda, I’ll come.’
Back in the lounge, Nicolas rose to his feet politely at her entrance, but Elizabeth looked rather put out. After handing Caroline a cup of coffee, she said: ‘Mr. Freeleng—’
‘—Nicolas, please.’
‘Yes.’ Elizabeth forced a smile. ‘Well, Nicolas—has invited us to dine with him this evening, and I’ve been trying to explain that naturally you will stay here and look after the children. Isn’t that right?’
Caroline seated herself on the edge of a chair, and Nicolas resumed his position on the couch. ‘Of course,’ she nodded, and sipped her coffee.
‘Mr. Freeleng said that if Caroline didn’t come to dine because of us then we could go, too,’ asserted David with his usual lack of tact. ‘Can we, Mummy, can we?’
Elizabeth turned cold eyes in Caroline’s direction. ‘I imagine Mr. Free—Nicolas, that is, was only being polite.’
‘On the contrary.’ Now it was Nicolas’s turn. ‘My invitation includes all of you. Surely it’s inconceivable to expect Miss Ashford to refuse all invitations while she’s here in order to take care of David and Miranda? I’m quite sure a more satisfactory arrangement could be reached. I’ve no doubt that Thomas would be prepared—’
‘I do not intend to leave my children in the charge of a—a houseboy!’ Elizabeth sounded annoyed now.
‘Why not?’ David protested. ‘It would be great. He probably knows all about witchcraft and black magic and that sort of thing! He might even know of some headhunters—’
‘That will do, David!’ Elizabeth’s temper was definitely rising.
Nicolas shrugged. ‘Very well then, if you would prefer a European to stay with the children, I suggest you allow me to contact Lucas Macdonald. He’s the physician in charge of the men’s health at the mine, and his daughter, Sandra, I’m sure would be delighted to come here this evening and sit with them.’
In the silence that followed this statement they all heard the sound of a car drawing up outside and presently the door of the bungalow opened and Charles came into the room.
‘Well, hello, Nick,’ he greeted the other man cheerfully. ‘I thought I recognised that automatic monster outside.’ He bent to kiss his wife’s cheek, and Caroline could sense from her withdrawal that he was instantly made aware that something was wrong. ‘What’s going on?’
Nicolas rose to his feet. ‘I’ve just been issuing your wife with an invitation for you all to dine with me this evening. I’ve invited one or two people. I thought it would serve as a kind of welcome reception for Mrs. Lacey.’
‘That sounds marvellous.’ Charles glanced down at his wife again. ‘What do you think, Elizabeth?’
Before Elizabeth could make any comment, however, Nicolas went on: ‘Unfortunately, there seems to be some difficulty about Miss Ashford being able to join us. Your wife is concerned about the children being left with Thomas—’
Charles drew out his cigarettes and offered them around. ‘I see.’
Elizabeth looked up at him impatiently. ‘I’ve been explaining that the reason Caroline came out here with us was to look after the children!’ she said coldly.
Caroline thrust down her cup and rose also. ‘I’m quite prepared to do it,’ she cried. ‘I don’t mind—’
‘Oh, nonsense!’ Charles apparently agreed with Nicolas Freeleng in this. ‘If Nicolas has invited you, too, then of course you must go.’
Nicolas’s face mirrored his satisfaction. ‘So! I have suggested that Sandra Macdonald might be prepared to sit with the children this evening.’
‘Of course. Sandra!’ Charles’s expression cleared. ‘Yes, she’d do it. Darling,’ he turned to his wife, ‘that’s a good idea. Sandra is completely trustworthy and capable. She lives with her father only a few yards along from us. Her mother is dead, and she’s become his housekeeper. She’s a charming girl. How old would you say she was, Nick? Twenty-five—twenty-six?’
‘Something like that,’ agreed Nicolas, nodding. ‘So—shall I contact her or will you?’
‘I’ll arrange it.’ Charles was trying to ignore his wife’s ungraciousness. ‘Now, can I offer you a drink, Nick? Coffee’s okay, but I’m ready for something a bit more thirst-quenching.’
But Nicolas shook his head. ‘I’m afraid I can’t stay, Charles, my friend. I have other calls to make.’ He turned to Elizabeth and took her hand. ‘Goodbye until this evening, Mrs. Lacey. I hope you will forgive me for overruling your wishes, but I can assure you, any anxiety so far as the children is concerned is quite unnecessary. They’ll be in safe hands.’
Elizabeth forced a smile. ‘Till this evening, Mr.—I mean—Nicolas.’
Nicolas turned to Caroline. ‘So you are to join us after all,’ he said, and only she could see the imp of mischief in his dark eyes. ‘I’ll look forward to it.’
Charles went with his employer to the door, and Caroline hesitated only a moment before gathering together the coffee cups and putting them on the tray. She dare
d hardly look at Elizabeth, and was not surprised when she ordered the children to their rooms to wash their hands before lunch. Then she said:
‘Well, I must say you’re a cool one!’
Caroline sighed and straightened, looking at the other woman resignedly. ‘Elizabeth, it wasn’t my idea.’
‘No, but you didn’t protest overmuch, did you? You left it all to me. I felt like some—some Victorian matriarch forbidding a servant to take a well-earned night off!’
‘Oh, Elizabeth!’
‘And when David said that you had suggested taking them along as well—’
‘I didn’t suggest that!’ exclaimed Caroline indignantly. ‘Nicolas Freeleng did!’
‘Oh, really?’ Elizabeth looked sceptical. ‘And are you trying to tell me that in the space of the few minutes it would take for you to let him in and find out what he wanted he took such a liking to you that he insisted that you come whatever the outcome?’
‘I didn’t let him in,’ retorted Caroline impatiently. ‘He came in with me. We met him on our walk, and he gave us a lift back.’
‘What?’ Elizabeth stared at her in amazement. ‘You mean he picked you up?’
‘Not like that, no.’ Caroline was looking terribly embarrassed when Charles came back into the room, rubbing his hands.
‘Well, that’s settled, then,’ he remarked cheerfully, evidently hoping that his wife would have accepted the situation by now. ‘I’ll have a word with Sandra this afternoon.’
Elizabeth rose to her feet. ‘And if I refuse?’
‘What do you mean?’ Charles sounded weary.
‘If I refuse to let this strange woman look after David and Miranda, what then?’
‘Then you’ll be obliged to stay at home and look after them yourself, won’t you?’ remarked her husband mildly, and left the room before she could say anything else.
Sandra Macdonald turned out to be an attractive, cheerful young woman, with a smooth cap of nut-brown hair and a comfortably curved figure. Although Caroline herself had little to do with her before they left she was relieved to see that Sandra seemed to laugh a lot and the children were taking to her. She and her father arrived at Charles’s instigation about half an hour before they were due to leave for Nicolas Freeleng’s dinner party and he served them drinks while Elizabeth finished dressing.
Caroline had chosen to wear a simple turquoise hostess gown. Made of a synthetic fibre, it had a low rounded neckline, and long sleeves, while the long skirt accentuated the rounded outline of her hips. When she joined Charles and the Macdonalds in the lounge before leaving she felt absurdly self-conscious, and wished she had insisted on remaining behind with the children. What must these people think of a nursemaid who went out to dine with her employer and his wife?
Fortunately, the conversation had not progressed beyond the vagaries of the British weather before Elizabeth joined them, and they all walked out to the car together. Lucas Macdonald took his leave, promising to call in again within the next few days, and Elizabeth issued Sandra with some final instructions before getting into the car beside her husband. Although David and Miranda had already been put to bed, Caroline saw two small shadowy figures in the recesses of the hall, watching them as they drove away.
It seemed to be taking them some time to reach Nicolas Freeleng’s house and when the lights of the settlement at La Vache disappeared behind a belt of tropical forest, Caroline couldn’t help leaning forward and saying: ‘Exactly where are we going?’
Charles glanced back over his shoulder and smiled at her. ‘Oh, Nick lives at Nyshasa, Caroline. Didn’t I tell you? Wait until you see his house. It’s quite something, believe me!’
Caroline sank back against the cool upholstery. After the heat of the day it was very refreshing to feel anything cold against her warm flesh. But the heat that was spreading through her now had nothing to do with the climate. Gareth lived at Nyshasa, too. He had said so.
A surge of excitement ran through her. All day she had kept thoughts of Gareth at bay, but now they would not be denied. She had tried not to speculate on how she was going to contrive to see him again, but perhaps it was not going to be as difficult as she had imagined.
They reached Nyshasa by crossing a high, precariously-balanced bridge over some falls which in daylight Charles assured them were spectacularly beautiful.
‘As soon as I have some free time we’ll bring a picnic up here,’ he said. ‘The kids would like that, and you can bathe in the water. It’s swift-running and clear, and quite free of infection.’
The sound of the falls was still in their ears as they turned from the narrow bridge along a track that seemed to skirt the tumbling river. Low, overhanging branches touched the roof of the car as Charles steered it slowly along the precipitous edge of a ravine, and then, much to everyone’s relief, the track wound upward between the trees and they saw ahead of them the lights of a house.
‘This is it,’ remarked Charles, as the bushes swept aside to reveal a clearing where a white-painted, two-storied dwelling shed artificial illumination over a gravelled forecourt. The sound of music and voices echoed from the verandah where Nicolas and his other guests were already enjoying drinks, and Charles parked his station wagon behind a dusty Landrover.
Behind and above the building, the thickly foliaged side of the ravine mounted to a velvety skyline, and in daylight the view from the windows at the front of the house must be quite magnificent, thought Caroline, as she climbed, unaided, out of the back of the car.
Elizabeth’s mutual admiration of Nicolas Freeleng’s house banished any trace of tension between them, and when Nicolas himself came down the shallow steps to greet them, Elizabeth became the charming young woman Charles Lacey had first fallen in love with.
‘I’m so glad you could come,’ enthused their host, encompassing them all in that instantaneous welcome. ‘Come along and meet my guests. Charles knows them already, of course.’
Caroline followed Elizabeth and Nicolas up the steps to the verandah with Charles at her side. She was glad of the shadowy darkness to hide her own nervousness, but the light there was had been sufficient for her to distinguish the silver-flecked fairness of a tall man’s hair.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE meal, which was served in an attractive dining-room at the back of the house, was excellent by any standards, and certainly Elizabeth could have nothing to complain about with regard to the ability of Nicolas Freeleng’s chef. An iced consommé of veal was followed by fried chicken and rice, and a crisp salad, and there was a strawberry mousse for dessert which melted in the mouth. The houseboys also saw to it that no one’s wine glass remained empty for very long, and Caroline found herself covering her glass with her palm and shaking her head apologetically as they passed. She wasn’t used to drinking wine after a liberal spate of Martinis, and she had no desire to become intoxicated and make a fool of herself. Particularly not with Gareth Morgan there to witness her every move.
Since their arrival and the perfunctory greetings which had been exchanged, she had not spoken to him. But as Nicolas appeared to have made himself her escort for the evening, perhaps that was not so surprising. All the same, her eyes had been drawn to the attractive appearance he presented in a dark lounge suit, his sun-bleached hair a startling contrast to the darkness of his tan. He was obviously quite at home in Nicolas’s house, and had been roped in as a kind of bar steward before dinner, serving drinks from the trolley the houseboy had wheeled on to the verandah.
As well as Caroline, Gareth and the Laceys, Nicolas had invited his mine superintendent and his wife, and an unattached young South African who was, Nicolas explained, in the process of doing a survey on mine management. Julian Holland, the mine superintendent, was a man in his fifties, with iron-grey hair and a spare, slightly stooping frame. His wife, Joan, was of a similar age, but she was small and plump, with hair that she apparently permed herself and a brown, weathered complexion. She was the kind of female Caroline had expected to find
in an outpost like this—friendly, but inquisitive, her only real enjoyment being derived from the kind of gossip practised over the coffee cups everywhere.
During the meal, the conversation veered inevitably towards masculine topics, and Caroline amused herself between courses by examining the attractive accoutrements of the room. The house was built of logs, somewhat like a ranch-house, and no attempt had been made to disguise the fact. On the contrary, the rough walls formed an ideal background for the hunting trophies which adorned them, while an enormous fireplace looked big enough to roast some of the smaller species of game. The polished floor was strewn with skin rugs, and there were rifles in a kind of rack by the door. The sight of the weapons caused Caroline no small sense of unease, and yet in wild surroundings like these one had to be prepared for every eventuality.
When the meal was over, they all adjourned to a comfortable lounge where a log fire was leaping up the chimney. Caroline thought it was an unnecessary addition to an already warm room, but the sight of the flames was cheering, as it was intended to be.
Having gauged Elizabeth’s reasons for being in Africa from her before the meal, when it was over Joan Holland sought Caroline’s company. Caroline had seated herself on a low couch some distance from the fireplace and was presently trying to concentrate on Elizabeth helping Nicolas to serve coffee and liqueurs when all the while she was intensely conscious of Gareth standing just inside the door, talking to Charles and possibly deciding where to sit. Her nails were curled tightly into her palms and she was stiff with tension when the gossipy little woman subsided on to the couch beside her.
‘Do you mind if I sit here?’ she enquired, unnecessarily, clearly not prepared for a refusal, and when Caroline shook her head, trying to contain her disappointment, she went on: ‘And how are you settling down here? Do you find the heat trying?’
Caroline shook her head again. ‘Not really,’ she answered shortly, but Joan Holland was not to be deterred.
‘Mrs. Lacey tells me you’re a school teacher,’ she remarked. ‘Is that right?’