'Even though he's not infected?' Gillian enquired incredulously.
'That's right, and the beasts of rich and poor, black and white, are all treated alike and without mercy.'
'If my herds break through the cordon, would they all be shot? she asked unbelievingly. 'Indubitably.'
'But is there no redress?' Gillian cried, aghast. 'The compensation paid by the Government is so small that in any case the rancher is ruined,' Dirk assured her.
'But if I control my cattle effectively, and they're not infected, then the foot-and-mouth outbreak can't ruin me?'
'Don't you see, Gillian,' Graham cut in. 'If all cattle movement is frozen, it means the breeder can't sell to other farmers, and people like you and me can't send cattle to the abattoir. Sale and export of meat too are frozen. No money comes in. It's disastrous for all. I've known the quarantine to last for as much as ten years.'
'But this is dreadful!' Gillian protested. 'How dare one take such a risk? How dare one be a rancher?'
'That's what many people are asking,' Graham replied. 'Dirk here, though for the moment he's retaining some stock, has already diverted the Usutu river into canals and has converted a large area into sugarcane plantations. They're most rewarding.' Eve yawned pointedly, but Graham ignored the hint. 'Other ranchers are growing rice successfully. As a matter of fact, I suggested to your late father that we turn our minds to the production of citrus fruit. The last foot-and-mouth outbreak was traced to an infected slaughtered goat which some idiot had smuggled over the Mozambique border for his family's Christmas dinner! A dog can carry the disease over with an infected bone. A vulture can fly it over. You see, it's too great a hazard.'
'What was my father's reaction to your suggestion?'
'He wouldn't consider it.'
'Then neither will I,' Gillian declared firmly. She intercepted the meaning look Graham and Dirk exchanged and caught the derisive little smile playing around Eve's beautiful lips. Inwardly Gillian thought: 'They consider me childish, but Daddy knew what he was about. It would be disloyal to go against his decision. In any case, they can't frighten me.' Unconsciously, she straightened up and pushed out her chin pugnaciously. She caught Dirk's eyes on her. He was grinning unconcealedly. She felt like bashing her fist into his face.
Graham rose from the settee, taking Gillian's empty glass from the small table before her.
'Come on, everyone,' he urged. 'How about a refill before the ladies array Eve's luscious repast?'
Gillian flew from her seat as if she had been shot. She had completely forgotten the purpose of her visit. 'Truly, I must go!' she cried. Then, turning in confusion to Graham, she said: 'Dabula, the gardener, has turned up. He's willing to start work after the Incwala. That's why I came over. I'm at a loss to know what wage to offer him. Where does he sleep? What does he eat?'
'Cried the distressed damsel, lifting her beautiful, imploring eyes appealing to her handsome and gallant knight errant,' scoffed Dirk.
Graham put his arm consolingly round her shoulders and pressed her to his side. 'You send him along to me, my dear, I'll make the necessary arrangements. Don't worry.'
She flung him a look of gratitude and, curling her lip deliberately at Dirk, walked towards the door. There she turned round suddenly, and said: 'Thanks for the drink, Graham.' She couldn't help noticing that Eve too had risen. She was standing behind Dirk's chair, one arm creeping sensuously round his neck, a newly lit cigarette between her seductive lips. She brought her mouth close to his, puffed, then switched the cigarette to his ironic mouth.
'Smoke, my darling?' she purred.
CHAPTER THREE
The bright African sun shone through the gap in the pale blue chintz curtains, letting Gillian know that another day with new interests and adventures waited to be explored.
'Take it easy,' the doctor had told her on leaving hospital. 'It will be a little while before your burns heal completely and there's always the 'danger of an infection. Spend a lot of time on your bed until the wounds have completely healed up.'
She had, however, been brought up in a strict order. A coddled invalid hadn't been heard of in the convent. 'Invalidism,' Mother Superior had many times repeated to the girls, 'can become an addiction, if one lets it, as insidious as an addiction to drugs, alcohol or any other delusive comfort of the flesh.'
Gillian realized that obeying her doctor was all right within reason, but she was beginning to enjoy the sympathetic mothering of Madelisa. She was also taking a great liking to Graham's attentive administerings. Sloth, she reminded herself, was one of the seven deadly sins. With that thought uppermost in her mind, she briskly flung her legs over the side of the bed and padded barefoot towards the bathroom in her pink lace shortie nightie.
Life surged through her as she stood by the open bathroom window, inhaling deep breaths of fresh country air. Thanks to an excellent constitution, her strength and zest for living were returning rapidly.
Later, when she appeared in the kitchen in brown slacks and a soft apricot muslin blouse which offset her pale skin and flaxen hair, Madelisa told her that six labourers had arrived to help with the work on the house. Graham had not let grass grow under his feet.
In the yard she caught sight of him in the centre of a group of black men of varying ages. He was talking to them. She saw them nod in agreement and disperse towards the barn. Graham came to meet her with a rueful countenance. 'I have enough workers for you, but no one to take the lead.'
'No builder?
'No. If you tell me what you want done, I can set the men to work, but after that I'm off to Shiselweni to buy young oxen from the farmers in that area.'
'This is really my department, Graham.' Gillian's eyes were serious. 'I meant it. Please don't mollycoddle me. I've come out to this country prepared to rough it. I'd like to prove myself to you ... and others.' She dropped her eyes as a faint blush crept into her soft cheeks.
Graham guessed whom she meant by 'others', and his eyes were suddenly troubled. He did not want this unsophisticated child to get hurt. Dirk had the reputation of being ruthless with the women who were always falling in love with him, and the signs were obvious that Gillian, in spite of her avowal of hate, was emotionally disturbed by Dirk - a disturbance that could easily turn into love. Graham felt helpless. There was nothing he could do to save this half-mature woman from certain heartbreak. If he counselled Dirk or warned Gillian, each would accuse him of jealousy. As he looked at the half-awakened girl before him, he wondered whether such an accusation did not have the basis of truth. One thing was certain, already the enchanting child had crept into his own heart and he would fight for her happiness if ever it should be necessary.
So deeply immersed in his thoughts was he that he did not realize that she was speaking to him until she said: 'Hi, Graham, snap out of it! I'm talking to you.'
'Sorry,' he said sheepishly. 'What was it you said?'
'All yesterday afternoon I spent making plans and sketches for the alterations. Please, leave this baby to me and go on your buying expedition.' She looked at him appealingly. 'Please!' she begged.
'How are you going to manage the workmen? You don't even know the language.'
'I spoke Siswati like a Swazi until I was six, don't forget. It's amazing how the words are coming back to me. The men are sure to understand the basic English words. We'll manage all right.'
Graham hesitated. 'I know all these boys well, excepting that one.' He indicated with a sidelong glance a stocky, pockmarked man, who sat somewhat removed from the rest of the group now squatting in the shade of the barn, waiting for the distribution of building tools from the shed and the order to start work. 'If that doubtful individual should try to make trouble, Gillian, the rest will be down on him like a ton of bricks. I can count on their loyalty. So, if you really think you can spare me....' Again he hesitated.
'I can handle the men, Graham, I'm quite, quite sure.' Gillian was so insistent that Graham overcame his scruples and decided to go where his
prime duty as rancher called him. 'What do you want done first?' he asked.
'Naturally, a bit of demolishing before I can build up.'
'I'll issue crowbars and pickaxes now, and telephone to Mbabane for cement.'
'And inquire about my rose-coloured bathroom tiles, please.'
'I'll do that, and arrange for an electrician and plumber to come out and give us a quotation.'
Gillian fetched her sketched plans, and together they calculated quantities of materials needed.
'We'd want bricks for patching interior walls,' she reminded him.
Graham laughed. 'Once that lot start the attack, there'll be no holding them. I hope they knock down the whole building, then you can move in with me.'
She thought he was joking, then she saw the tenderness of his clear blue eyes. 'He's a darling, and I love him to bits,' Gillian thought. 'Please don't let him fall in love with me, though.'
Graham stayed until the Swazis were well started, then drove off in the ranch jeep. The Swazis set to with a will and moved the furniture from all the rooms, except Gillian's bedroom, into the barn, where Madelisa covered the furniture with old sheets. Then, with crowbars and pickaxes, they attacked the inside brick walls which Gillian wanted removed. She fled to the kitchen to escape the choking dust.
When, much later, she returned to see how the work was progressing, she stared aghast. The men were demolishing two walls which she wanted to retain. The greatest part of the passage wall on one side lay in a dusty pile. She tried to talk to the workmen, to argue with them, to discover how such a misunderstanding could have occurred, but they shook their heads uncomprehendingly. Not one of them could speak a word of English and her Siswati was utterly inadequate.
She all but took one by the scruff of the neck to bring him to the wheelbarrows and spades in the toolshed, and with much miming and gesticulating asked the men to remove the debris. She pointed to a spot beyond the yard, where the rubble could be deposited. The pockmarked man looked surly and waved his arms at the rest. Gillian again retired to the kitchen.
After a while she stepped into the yard, but there was no sign of debris on the spot that she had indicated. She walked round the house, and found a pile of bricks and rubble in the centre of the overgrown lawn, and more being added each minute from the wheelbarrows.
Gillian stood speechless with helpless rage. Then she turned on her heel and made for the barn, where she knew she would be alone. She leaned her head against the piled furniture and give vent to her frustration and fury in a fit of hopeless weeping. All the courage, energy and verve of the morning had deserted her. Maybe she was not sufficiently recovered from the shock of the crash and injuries to attempt this huge project.
She was so engrossed with her misery that she did not hear the roar of an approaching motor-cycle. Then suddenly she became aware of a comforting, muscled arm encircling her waist. Intuitively she knew it to be Dirk's. His unexpected sympathy broke open floodgates of tears as she swung round and buried her face against his hard breast.
'No, no, no, Gillian,' he soothed her in a more gentle tone than she had yet heard from him.
'Oh - oh... D-Dirk!' she sobbed.
'Don't cry, Gillian.' He stood quite still, his arms a haven of comfort.
Gradually Gillian's emotional storm abated until only a few shuddering sighs remained, like the faint, distant little flashes of lightning when a tempest is spent. Then she felt that the arms holding her were no longer gentle, but were drawing her closer, forcefully, urgently. Her heart began to beat thunderously. A trembling sensation filled her whole being. She felt his lips against her hair. Joy sang in her heart. He was not indifferent to her - she knew that now. She pressed closer and lifted her flushed, tear-stained face to be kissed.
For a moment his passionate look held hers, then the old mockery crept into his dark eyes. 'Little flirt!' he whispered in her ear, and drew away from her. A stunned look swept over Gillian's face. A stony determination settled upon her. She would never forgive him. Never! never! Somehow, somewhere, she would get even with him. Oh, she could wait.
With almost super-human self-control she summoned an air of cold indifference, pulled out a dainty lace handkerchief from the pocket of her blouse and wiped her tears.
In complete control of herself now, and ignoring what had just happened, she told Dirk the reason for her outburst. As her mind cleared, she registered that his hands were no longer bandaged, but she said nothing. It was suddenly as though that passionate moment had never been. In a businesslike voice she heard him inform her that he had brought her a builder who could now take charge. The man spoke English reasonably well and would see that Gillian's instructions were carried out.
Dirk led her to where Zwane, a tall intelligent-looking Swazi, with a noble bearing, stood waiting in the shade of a brilliantly plumed flame tree.
Gillian was struck by the fact that he wore a red feather in his black fuzzy hair above his left ear ..She shot an inquiring look at Dirk. 'The red feather?' she asked under her breath, so that the words would not reach the Swazi's ears.
Dirk addressed himself to the man. 'The Nkosazana wishes to know why you wear the red feather. Tell her.'
A slow smile played over the proud face. 'I am of royal blood, Nkosazana. It is the sign - the red feather.'
'Maybe that knowledge lurked in my memory when I chose a red feather as mark of identification between Graham and me,' Gillian remarked.
'Between you and me, as it turned out,' Dirk corrected her dryly.
With Zwane, they joined the workmen. Dirk ordered them to remove the rubble from the lawn, and from the passage, to the place that she had chosen in the first instance.
Gillian ran with the speed and grace of a young impala buck into the house for the plans and sketches.
Dirk kept his hands in his pockets and she held the sheets of drawings up for him to study. 'I think your idea is excellent,' he complimented her. 'Especially the rose-tiled bathroom, with its large wall mirror. I must say I'm jealous of its privilege of seeing what it will reflect.'
Gillian ignored the implication. 'You think my plans are feasible?'
'Why, certainly. Changing the interior brick walls is easy.'
'But they've broken down unnecessary walls and half the passage is down,' she moaned.
'It could be turned to advantage,' he comforted her. 'Especially as your aim is fewer rooms and more space - a lot can be achieved with archways.'
He drew his solution in the dust with the point of his shoe, and she agreed to it. He called Zwane and explained her intentions to the listening black man. Immediately Zwane took command and the other Swazis jumped to his orders.
'I'd like to consult you about one more thing,' Gillian said, looking trustfully up at him. 'I love fight and sunshine - do you think whitewash instead of the dark wallpaper will give the effect I want?'
'I do.'
'You agree that it's unnecessary to break out bigger windows?'
'I've already indicated that it's unwise to tamper with the stone structure.' A wicked glint sparked in his eyes. 'You mustn't keep me any longer. I have work to do.'
A flame of anger darted through her. She veiled the hatred in her eyes and kept the long black lashes sweeping downwards. She spoke coldly. 'I must thank you for Zwane.'
He quirked an eyebrow. 'Surprise! Surprise! At long last a word of gratitude from those kissable, peach-blossom lips!'
She kept her eyes lowered and he watched the slow tide of colour rise in her pale cheeks. 'Can you guess why I brought Zwane to you? He's my best man. Can you guess?' There was no answer. 'Pure impulse. His royal red feather reminded me of you.' He started his motor-cycle and with the magnificent grace of a Grecian athlete vaulted into the seat. With the wind ballooning his shirt, he hurtled away in the dust.
She was left with an intolerable ache of loneliness in her heart.
For the next few days Gillian was so hard pressed with work that there was little time for thought or emoti
on. Her activity seemed to generate energy. The moment the alteration to a room was completed, she and Madelisa moved in to strip the dark wallpaper and whitewash the walls.
Under the able command of Dirk's royal Swazi, Zwane, building operations were progressing swiftly. Each night the labourers returned to their different kraals, but Gillian and Madelisa were responsible for feeding them well twice a day. She also supplied meals to the electrician and plumber from Mbabane. Every spare minute was taken up with baking and cooking.
Gillian was baking bread. Her wheat-gold hair, caught neatly by a red bow on top of her head, cascaded down to her shoulders. She had pushed the sleeves of her red silk blouse to high above the smooth young elbows, and was pounding bread dough with such earnest concentration that the sound of the arrival of a jeep went unregistered.
A shadow fell across the bar of sunlight on the kitchen floor. Unsuspecting, she turned her head sideways, blowing a wayward golden strand from her face, rosy with exertion, and looked into the sardonic eyes of Dirk von Breda. His elegant masculine body was clad in a khaki safari shirt and he wore a casual patterned kerchief at his throat. He leaned carelessly against the outside of the door frame, puffing at his pipe. He watched Gillian from under sleepy eyelids as she, pretending to ignore him, continued with her work. He took in every detail of the swinging golden hair, bare floured forearms and alluring figure in freshly laundered white slacks. Filled with humiliation at the memory of his rebuff, when she had offered him her lips in the barn, she venomously battered the dough with her small fists.
'Quite the little housekeeper, eh?' the voice from the door remarked.
With pretended unconcern, the girl went on kneading; but her mind, for all her pretence at indifference, was in a state of turmoil. She sensed that his dark eyes were on the movement of her body as each muscle from head to heel worked in co-ordination with the energetic pressure of alternate fists into the resisting dough. The only sign of awareness of his lazy scrutiny was the fact that the rose of her cheeks deepened in colour.
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