Early next morning Thea left Bondolo. She brought Venetia’s breakfast and poured her first cup of coffee. “You will come again soon?” Venetia begged.
“With luck, I may snaffle next Sunday afternoon. I’ll do my best to let you know.”
“If you can’t, come just the same. It’s going to be wonderful, having you so near.”
Thea gave a tug to the brim of her hat and a pat to the lapel of her suit. “I’m going to enjoy it, too.” A pause. “Do take care, Venetia. Blake must love you very much and you owe it to him not to do anything risky.”
She reverted to her usual briskness. “Well, wish me luck in my new job.”
“I do, with all my heart. I shall think of you often during the day.”
Thea laughed. “You can let up while Blake’s about, and don’t remind him too often that I work for my living. He has the masculine type of self-respect that demands complete dependence upon him of his womenfolk. The fights we’ve had about it!”
It struck neither of them as odd that Thea should be elucidating Blake to Blake’s wife. But Thea’s expression, as she drove away from the estate, was grave. Sunday, with Venetia recovering and Blake natural and companionable, had allayed her suspicions of the day before. She had been able to assure herself that her brother’s curt welcome was the outcome of anxiety, and Venetia’s relief at the arrival of another woman understandable in a young wife who had been too much alone.
No one who knew Blake would expect him to be lavish with endearments in front of others, but wasn’t his behaviour abnormally cold? Perhaps her impression that Blake treated his wife too much as a child was mistaken. Surely it was obvious to a man of his years that Venetia craved his love and tenderness, that however young, where he was concerned she was a woman?
Venetia was unfledged, of course; she wasn’t yet nineteen. Nevertheless, Thea was certain that both spirit and intensity dwelt within her young sister-in-law. Her flowering was up to Blake.
This morning, saying goodbye to him, Thea had ventured an opinion.
“Venetia’s stronger than she looks, Blake. She shouldn’t be wrapped in cotton wool.”
“She gets around—rides and plays tennis,” he’d answered, without expression.
“Not as much as she should. Time enough to curb her activities when she’s going to have a baby.”
Blake hadn’t replied for a minute. Then he’d said, with vicious coolness: “Mind your own damned business, Thea. Being a nurse doesn’t entitle you to use clinical arguments in the house.”
A clammy thought now brought her foot down hard upon the accelerator. Supposing Blake hadn’t married for love? Supposing he’d been prompted by a lesser emotion, such as pity allied with mere fondness, and Venetia were doomed to endure his tolerance and unintentional cruelties?
Thea could picture nothing more tragic than being married to, but not loved by, a man like Blake.
CHAPTER SEVEN
DURING the following days Venetia had cause to be almost thankful that she tarried too long in the sun last Saturday. It was good to have Blake come into the room where she sat and lean over to leave a kiss, however light, upon the top of her head or the curve of her neck. And it was star-studded heaven to have him spending the evenings with her on the veranda or in the lounge. It was strange how her helplessness had shaken the barriers.
The next Saturday he asked over the Clarkes and a man they had staying with them. To even up the number, Natalie Benham was roped in.
Natalie was popular in the district, daring on a horse and an earnest farmer as well as an exceptionally good-looking woman with dress sense. One took it that she was unmarried from choice. Margery said that owning a farm had spiced her self-esteem, and she did have an air of well-being and arrogance which Venetia rather admired, though she preferred Thea’s type of self-possession. Difficult to imagine a person of Natalie’s hard brightness handing out medicines and consolation for twelve hours a day. Whenever Venetia heard her talking with Blake it sounded as if she had more sympathy for horses and cattle than for human beings.
The evening passed pleasantly, and when their guests had gone Blake complimented her on the dinner and the unusual savouries she had concocted to accompany the nightcaps.
“They weren’t really necessary,” she said, “but the whole lot disappeared. You people eat so much.”
“Blame the outdoor life, and your excellent food. Who taught you how to make those creamy castles with the cherry on top that we had at dinner?”
“I got the recipe from a book. Mosi wanted to serve chocolate puddings again, but I wouldn’t have them. The boy has no imagination.”
He grinned. “Poor Mosi. He came and entreated me to remove you from the kitchen. He said: ‘Baas, that missus won’t have no chicken this night. She won’t have no chocolate pudding, and no rice in the soup. Baas, you go hungry this night.’ I kicked him out.”
She smiled up at him. “That was nice of you, but weren’t you uneasy?”
“Not in the least. I was pretty certain that as you’d undertaken to dine six people, dine six people you would. Did you think I hadn’t noticed the recent changes from Mosi’s stock list of dishes?”
“You haven’t said.”
“I’m saying it now.” With precision he extinguished the two electric lights and picked up the unwieldy paraffin lamp from a corner table. Carelessly, he enquired, “What is the largest number we can entertain to dinner at one time—as many as thirty?”
“Oh no!” She searched his face with startled eyes. “I should be scared into fits, unless we could hire a first-class cook. Do we have to give a party of that size?”
“It would be for your birthday.”
She coloured slightly and moved, as though to precede him from the lounge. Hesitantly she said: “I’d rather we didn’t make too much of it. Don’t you think it would be much more pleasant if we kept it to ourselves—just the two of us?”
In a curious tone he said: “Maybe it would,” and held back the door for her. “No need to decide yet. Quite a lot can happen in a month.”
As Venetia got into bed that night she pondered his sudden withdrawal from the subject of her birthday. Instinctively she knew he would be glad when she was nineteen, and intuition also told her that his personal desires were all against a huge function to celebrate the occasion. He would like to give her a birthday party, just as he enjoyed giving her everything she had gone without all her life, but he disliked publicizing her age. There was an immense difference between entertaining close friends for a few hours and filling the house with inquisitive and hilarious acquaintances; though Venetia had a deep and throbbing awareness that if her marriage with Blake were normal the difference between their ages would not matter, and everything and everyone else would recede into their proper perspective.
Sitting up in bed, arms hugging tented knees, she wondered tremulously if he was beginning to love her. Sometimes, when he spoke gently or teasingly, she had come perilously near to casting control to the winds, and laying her arms about his neck and pleading for his lips. Shy reserve had checked spontaneity, and then came the chill of remembrance: her father’s plea that Venetia be taken care of, and Blake’s interpretation of it. Bitterness would clog her throat, and involuntarily she shrank back into the armour of the cool, fixed smile. That letter would always lie between them, a spear to Venetia, and a reminder to Blake that he had married for the wrong reasons.
Venetia snapped off the bedside lamp and resolutely thought about tomorrow, and seeing Thea again.
As it happened, Thea did not turn up. On his morning canter Blake had intercepted a native boy bearing a note from the hospital. Thea was sorry to disappoint them, but would definitely be along on Wednesday. She hoped Venetia had recovered, and sent them both her love.
For a while Venetia was downcast, but when Blake suggested a drive towards the mountains and a picnic lunch she forgot Thea in the joy of preparing the basket and sitting beside him as they sped between plantations tow
ards green and rocky peaks. The day stretched long and precariously happy. They fished in a stream, lunched and dozed, and strolled by the riverside beneath bending trees. The tension between them was less noticeable than at any time since Venetia had arrived at Bondolo. She did not dwell upon the fact that it came back as the distance narrowed between the car and home.
It was cooler next morning. The wind had shifted, bringing refreshing breaths from the east, and Blake proposed to use the “cold spell”—which could not last long—for some intensive cane cutting.
“Come along for an hour,” he said. “It’s a gay and noisy business. You’ll like it.”
“Have I time to change?”
“Yes, and wear your boots—not shoes. We may meet a snake among the cane. The boys know how to deal with them, but its best to play it safe.”
“I’ll be quick,” she said, thinking how perfect everything was this morning.
Presently they came to where the cutting was in progress. The cutters worked in a strung-out line, wielding long-handled scythes. Most of them wore bright shirts and head-covering of some sort, but the piccanins who followed them up, grouping the cane and carrying it in shoulder-loads to the ox-cart, were clad only in the scantiest of shorts. Their woolly domes and black skins were covered with dust, but they were the merriest of the lot.
There was little here for Blake to do, but he stayed in the saddle beside Venetia till she had had enough of the scene. Then they rode on to the cross-road which separated the sugar from the timber.
“I have to go down to see the foreman,” he said. ‘You turn left, Venetia, and make your way home.”
“Can’t I go with you?”
“Better not. It’ll take some time and this is your first ride for over a week. I’ll try to be back by noon.”
“Please do, and we’ll bathe together.”
“Off you go, then. Don’t gallop, and don’t dismount among the trees.”
At the first bend Venetia turned and waved. Blake had waited to see her out of sight as she had hoped he would. Ginger’s hoofbeats, muted by dust and sparse turf, provided an almost imperceptible drum-beat to the wind-borne singing of the field-workers.
The trees thinned into marulas and thornbush; the sugar was left behind. Venetia had entered the outskirts of the cattle veld. Soon she would come to their own stretch of river and amble along its bank as far as the cycad palms, where a path branched and ran through the bush to join the road to the house.
How lovely were the undulating reaches of veld, like a painted sea under the changing sky. Some time she would make straight for the horizon and perhaps peer over the edge into rainbow-land.
Distracted by this flight of imagination, she watched with detachment the lightning passage of a small red buck across her field of vision. It was a graceful little animal, and almost soundless. The horseman who chased the creature, however, was thudding much too close to be ignored. In a reflex action she pulled swiftly from his path.
He dragged the reins, swung back and trotted to her side.
“I say, I’m terribly sorry. Thousands and thousands of acres of veld and yet I have to nearly unseat you. Are you all right?”
“Perfectly.” She stared, smiling, at the slim young man with rough, fairish curls and pleasing features. He looked like the juvenile lead from a film. “I’m delighted to have prevented you from capturing the buck.”
“I wouldn’t have hurt the thing,” he protested. “Red bush duiker are rare in these parts and this one looked lonely. He’d have been happier in my cousin’s game sanctuary.” He seemed to become conscious of several things at once. “Perhaps you know my cousin—Mervyn Mansfield? I’m Neil Mansfield. I’ve just come from the university to take a junior partnership in his office.”
“You mean the firm of Mansfields—the civil engineers and surveyors in Ellisburg?”
“That’s right,” he rejoined eagerly. “This is the fag-end of a few days’ rest at his place. I have to move to town this afternoon and dig in with another fellow in a flat.” His glance stole over the bright young face and kindled. “I hadn’t the least notion that Mervyn had a neighbour like you. He wouldn’t tell me, of course.”
“My name is Venetia Garrard.”
“Oh.” Blankness gave way to a frown, and he sprang down from his horse. “I’ve heard of Blake Garrard—everyone in this district has. You’re not ... you can’t be Mrs. Garrard?”
She nodded, and let him help her to the ground.
Neil said: ‘A man who came to see my cousin last night mentioned you. He said that Blake had a young and very pretty wife.”
“How nice of him!” She tugged slightly at the rein, so that the chestnut kept up the walking pace of herself and Neil. “I don’t suppose you realize you’re trespassing on Garrard property?”
“No! Am I? Is there a penalty?”
His agreeably boyish manner was disarming. Somehow, his lightheartedness was a part of her present mood. She smiled at him.
“Only a warning for a first offence, but it’s strictly forbidden to hunt buck at Bondolo.”
“I’ll remember that, though I repeat that I meant the little chap no harm.” He crinkled the corners of his eyes. “Somehow, I can’t think of you as married. You don’t look a bit like the usual planter’s wife. They’re good women, but often homespun, and they neglect their appearance.”
“Give me time,” she said. “I haven’t lived here long.”
His eyes were ardent with interest as he took her up: “You come from England, don’t you? My mother was English. She used to talk to me about London and the Cotswolds. She actually came from Oxfordshire. There was a lovely river called the Windrush...”
“I’ve seen it!” she exclaimed. “My father and I spent a holiday at a Cotswold village and hiked for miles. One day we sat on a narrow stone bridge over the Windrush and could actually touch the water with our feet. It gurgled along so happily and smelled so fresh. The trees dipped over it and the grass on each side was a brilliant green—not this colour”—her hand went out to indicate the dark, prodigal growth around them—“but emerald, with clumps of small, wild flowers. The sky was a marvellous pale blue with white scarves across it, and the birds sang...”
Venetia stopped abruptly, in queer, inward fright. What on earth had made her burst out like that to a stranger? How could she be so disloyal to Blake and the country which had befriended her?
“You miss England?” said Neil, as if he understood. But he was far from understanding, her heart swiftly replied. He was simply an amiable young man who had accidentally released a poignant memory.
“Not at all,” she said with decision. “I wouldn’t live anywhere in the world but here, at Bondolo. I must go now.”
“So soon?” he demanded, dismayed. “Can’t I ride with you as far as your house?”
“Not today.” She put her foot in the stirrup and took a spring which landed her in the saddle. “Good-bye.”
Chagrined, he rested a hand on the horse’s neck. “Collisions like ours are fated, Venetia. Didn’t you know that? We’re bound to meet again.”
Her smile down at him was mischievous. “That will give you something to look forward to. Out of my way, please, and no poaching this side of the border.
“Words of flint from the lips of beauty! When do you go to Ellisburg?”
“Never. Leave go of the rein.”
“I can’t let you ride straight out of my life. Don’t you give tennis parties at Bondolo to which you could invite an extra player who possesses considerable charm? My speed is pretty good.”
“I don’t doubt it. If we’re a man short I’ll send for you.” Her heel nudged Ginger's side. “Good-bye once more.”
The horse moved off.
“But you haven’t my address!” Neil called after her.
Laughter floated over her shoulder. “We’re bound to meet again,” she reminded him, and urged the chestnut into a canter.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE smi
le stayed on her mouth and sparkled in her eyes. She had met one or two men of Neil’s type before, at Umsanga, and been diverted but not deceived by their frank flattery. It was a line they took which assured them of instant popularity with women of all ages but kept them free of complications.
She supposed he was about twenty-five and not too enamoured with the prospect of settling down to his career. Vaguely, she recollected a chance encounter with his cousin in town, and Margery’s shrug: “He seldom visits or entertains. Passes his spare time watching wild life and pitying himself. Rather a boor of a man, I believe.” Venetia might have followed up the matter had she guessed that Mervyn Mansfield was, as distances are gauged in South Africa, a close neighbour to Bondolo. Blake had never mentioned him.
By the time she reached the paddock, Neil Mansfield was forgotten, but his effect upon her lingered in the music of her voice and her mad rush with Binty down to the bathingpool. Her blood sang, her whole body vibrated with a delicious yearning.
She swam and lazed in the shade, threw a stick for the spaniel, and wished that Blake would come—wished hard, because he was the focal point of her new happiness and longing. The chimes of the hall clock carried thinly down the garden, separating the quarters; in due course it struck one o’clock, and it was useless to loiter any longer.
She put on a dress and brushed her hair, inspected the dining-table, and peeped under the covers at cold meats and salad. A little on edge as she always was when he came late, she strolled on to the veranda.
He appeared on the path, striding, and she went down the steps to meet him. Sharply and cruelly, all expectancy died.
“Have you had trouble, Blake?”
“Plenty of it,” he answered grimly. “I haven’t time for lunch. I’ve come back for the car.”
“It won’t take five minutes to get you a flask and some sandwiches.”
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