Red Feather Love

by Suzanna Lynne

  He steered the cycle through the stone archway and up the avenue of flame trees. In spite of the rain in her eyes, Gillian could make out the elegant lines of the majestic double-storied building covered with creepers weeping with the rain.

  The door opened as Dirk helped her up the stone steps, and an old uniformed Swazi relieved Dirk of his oilskins and rubber boots.

  'Send Gezephi up with fresh towels immediately,' Dirk commanded.

  At the sight of the sumptuous red-carpeted entrance hall, Gillian slipped off her muddied brown sandals with their gilt buckles and left them on the doorstep. Dirk ushered her barefooted up the magnificent white marble staircase. She had heard of the beautiful homes built by some of the earliest English settlers, but had never visualized anything of such magnificence as that which now met her gaze. As she mounted the stairs, she glimpsed through archways below spacious living rooms with beautiful antiques, Persian carpets, Venetian chandeliers and paintings. She felt as though die were in a dream and pinched herself childishly to prove that this was reality.

  They reached the landing, and Dirk stopped at a heavy brass-knobbed door. He looked down, at her with wicked eyes and in a voice dripping with honeyed allure, said: ' "Will you walk into my parlour? said the spider to the fly".'

  Gillian refused to be amused.

  The door opened into a beautiful wood-panelled room with sombre furniture, a solid black hand-carved fourposter from old Spain, a massive ebony wardrobe, two black leather club easies and A huge ebony desk. Thick pelts covered the floor. The curtains were of heavy wine-coloured handwoven mohair.

  Through an interleading door she glimpsed the black and wine tiled bathroom with its copper fittings. Dirk bent down at the wide open hearth and flicked a lighter to the stacked pine cones and dry wood. Immediately flames leapt up. Gillian, wet, bedraggled and shivering, spread her frozen little hands gratefully towards the warmth. Dirk flung open the wardrobe door and slipped an elegant wine dressing gown of light wool from a hanger. 'Come with me,' he said shortly.

  She followed him into the bathroom. He turned on a stream of gushing hot water into a great sunken bath and placed the gown over the back of the chair. 'Now hurry! Throw out your clothes. Gezephi will take care of them; and don't lock the door — that's an order.'

  'B ... but ...' stammered Gillian, eyes wide with fright.

  His sardonic eyes took in her shivering, drenched little figure and the dank blonde hair hanging limply around her shoulders. 'Poor little drowning rat,' he mocked as he left her and pulled the door closed.

  The bath was filling rapidly. With numb fingers Gillian struggled to drag off the wet, clinging clothes and wring them out over the wine porcelain basin.

  In the bedroom Dirk, pipe in hand, lounged carelessly against the black marble mantelpiece. He smiled with ironic amusement as the smallest of crevices opened in the bathroom door and a timid little hand dropped one garment after the other on to the bedroom floor. Through the crevice Gillian caught a glimpse of a dark-skinned maid in spruce white uniform and perky cap bending down to collect the clothes.

  Dirk held the towels the maid had brought towards the blazing fire, while Gillian lay in the bath, soaking up the comforting warmth of the water. In spite of the relaxed state of her thawing body, her mind was once more in a state of turbulence. If only she had someone to talk to, someone to whom she could confide the fears and doubts, the yearnings, the tearing emotions that racked her. She wished she had a mother. Daddy would have been able to counsel her, and explain herself to herself. She remembered, as if it were yesterday, the talk they had had shortly before his accident. He had warned her that on leaving the shelter of the convent she must be prepared to enter a new phase of adolescence. He had spoken of a period of storm and emotional stress and uncertainty, which was the human lot - Sturm und Drang, he had called it. She supposed she was in that phase now. She certainly could .not understand herself. How could one hate a person as violently as she hated Dirk, and at the same time yearn for him so unashamedly? With a touch he could rouse the most frightening passion in her, and with a word, a sardonic look, an action, could change that passion to fiery hate.

  Eve had warned her: 'Hate is akin to love.' Did she, Gillian, hate the man? Did she love him? She thought of Graham - good, kind, dependable Graham, who loved her and wanted to marry her. What would Daddy have advised? A safe haven of peace and comradeship with Graham, but boredom, oh yes, boredom - or a tempestuous life of glorious heights of passion and heartbreaking depths of sorrow with a man like Dirk? 'I don't know. I just don't know!' she thought wearily.

  A loud knock at the bathroom door startled her out of her reverie.

  'D-don't come in!' cried Gillian in a panic, looking around frantically for a towel. There was none.

  'Poor frightened little Miss Prim,' came Dirk's mocking voice through the door. 'I'm merely throwing in your warmed towels.' The door opened slightly and a lean brown hand dropped two richly-piled rose- coloured towels on to the bathroom floor. When Gillian, looking shy in Dirk's man-size dressing gown, emerged from the bathroom, he handed her a mug of steaming coffee. 'Drink that,' he told her. 'I've laced it with brandy. I'd hate to see you snivelling unromantically with a cold.'

  As she stood before the fire, sipping the delicious well-sugared mixture, she felt a warm glow course through her veins. She let her gaze travel slowly over the room, and a thoughtful expression settled on her face.

  Dirk studied her silently, puffing at his pipe. 'Well?' he asked after a while. 'What's the verdict?'

  Gillian took another sip of the laced coffee. 'I was thinking,' she mused, 'if a room reflects the character of its master, then I should know how to sum you up.'

  Dirk knocked out his pipe in a heavy brass ashtray and sat down in one of the leather chairs. 'This sounds interesting,' he drawled. 'Sit down. Let's hear.' He leant back lazily, elbows on the arm-rests, hands clasped lightly against his chunky black sweater, and stretched his long legs towards the fire. Gillian remained standing, hands hugging the warm mug. She gazed pensively at the heavy black furniture and mohair curtains.

  'I would say. ...' She paused and looked at him teasingly.

  'Yes?'

  'You're a bit old-fashioned.'

  'No!' he said, miming surprise. 'You don't say!'

  'I would say you were a man with good taste - aesthetic, you know.'

  He looked at her sleepily from under thick lashes. 'No undeserved compliments, please. Go on.'

  'A man of discernment; one who hates sham, and is satisfied with only the genuine article.'

  'You're right there. Especially where my women are concerned - that's why I like you.' His voice was earnest.

  For an instant her eyelids fluttered, then she continued composedly: 'You're rich, but unpretentious - free from ostentation. You're solid, dependable, direct, purposeful.'

  'All right, I know there's a sting in the tail. Out with it!'

  She walked to the cumbersome wardrobe, pretending to try and push it. 'Hard, immovable, obstinate - in other words, a man with fixed ideas.'

  'Such as?'

  'I don't know as yet.'

  'Anything else?'

  'Black - too sombre. You have melancholy moods, I'm sure. You need to marry somebody light and sparkling to bring brightness into the gloom.'

  'Like you, for instance? Is this a subtle proposal?'

  'I could never marry you.'

  'No?'

  'I would wilt in a sombre atmosphere.'

  'Some day I shall show you the rest of my house - no gloom there; but that's by the way. I, for my part, could never marry a child like you - no cradle-snatching for me, thanks.'

  'Maybe that's one of your fixed ideas: that 'I'm a child; that you can't marry a child.' She came towards him, and stood before him, her young face earnest. 'One thing I know,' she spoke with strange conviction, 'I was a child when I came out here, but I'm a child no longer.'

  He looked at her intently. 'If only I could believe that,'
he murmured. He rose languidly and took her empty mug from her. 'More coffee?'

  'No, thanks.'

  He deposited the mug on the mantelpiece, then placed a bronzed hand on her head. 'Your hair is still damp.?

  'I know.'

  'Let me dry it.'

  Gillian stepped back. 'No need,' she parried.

  'Bend down your, head.' His voice was suddenly harsh. She obeyed and the long, damp hair fell before her blushing face as she bent forward. She felt his hard fingers against her scalp as he separated the blonde strands, shaking them softly and exposing them to the heat of the flames. Instantly the blood began to pulse at her temples. She felt mad at herself - furious at this helpless inability to restrain the stir of emotion roused by his magnetic touch.

  In silence, he combed his lean fingers through the strands, alternately swishing the hair back and forth in the glow.

  At last, with both hands he swept the drying golden cascade back over her forehead, and clasped his fingers behind her neck. Her green-gold eyes melted before his passionate gaze and a strange weakness stole into her limbs. His lips came dangerously close. Every nerve in her body cried out to her to surrender her lips to his, but she had learnt her lesson that day in the barn. He would not again be given the chance to call her 'little flirt'. Though her limbs felt weak with desire and her whole body ached for his arms to crush her to him, she strained away from him, resisting his compelling eyes, as she pulled vainly at his imprisoning wrists. She felt his fingers entangle her hair, dragging back her head roughly. Then his hard chin pushed aside the dressing gown at her shoulder, and his mouth crushed into her silken skin. She heard his gasping breath. 'Gillian!' he whispered in a voice thick with passion. 'Gillian, Gillian, Gillian!'

  'No!' she cried in desperation. 'No, Dirk, no! Let me go, you devil!'

  Instantly he released her and strode from the room. Gillian sank weakly into a chair, her small white hands covering her flaming face.

  She did not know how long she sat there. Where would this wild obsession end? She faced the blinding truth - a truth she would never again doubt: She loved him - loved him with every atom of body and soul.

  She vowed that she would never again allow herself to be placed in such an immeasurably dangerous situation as this of today. She must never surrender unless it was as his bride, and of that, she admitted miserably, there was no hope. He had said as much. Pride surged within her. He must never know that she loved him - much sooner would she marry Graham or sell the ranch and return to England.

  There was a gentle knock at the door and the maid, Gezephi, entered with Gillian's clothes, clean, dry and immaculate.

  'However did you manage this?' Gillian cried in astonishment as she fingered the white polo-neck sweater.

  'With the washerette and spin drier, Nkosazana. It is an easy matter. The master says if the Nkosazana is ready, will she come down, and he will drive her home.'

  Gillian thanked the maid and quickly slipped into her clothes. She found her cleaned sandals at the foot of the stairs. The Aston-Martin, with its hood up, stood outside in the rain. Dirk was waiting behind the wheel, his face inscrutable, while a chastened Ntombi sat on the back seat. Gillian guessed that she had been punished for deserting her adopted mistress. Gezephi held an umbrella over Gillian's head as she stepped from the verandah and dashed across the flagstones towards the car.

  They ploughed and skidded home in a strained silence, broken only by the swish-swish backwards and forwards of the windscreen wipers. Sadly she watched the little rivulets of water coursing down the sides of the glass, screen. Dirk drove the Aston-Martin right up to the kitchen door and Gillian stepped dry-footed into the room with Ntombi close on her. heels. Without a word, Dirk drove off through the slush in the yard.

  A black mood of depression sank upon her as she stood on the threshold and watched him splash away in the rain. Madelisa gave Gillian and Ntombi a restrained welcome in the cosy kitchen with its burning wood stove.

  'How is your sick grandchild?' Gillian asked directly.

  'It is dead.'

  'You could do nothing to save it?'

  'I was too late.'

  Gillian put an arm around Madelisa's shoulder. 'I'm sorry,' she whispered. 'When is the funeral to be?'

  'Tomorrow afternoon.'

  'You must go. Go now.'

  'Tomorrow will be time enough.'

  'I'm sorry if you were worried about me, Madelisa,' Gillian said contritely.

  'Not to worry, Nkosazana. Nkosan Dirk phoned me twice; once to say that Ntombi was there without you, and the other time to say you were safe.'

  Gillian smiled wryly at the word 'safe', and stared thoughtfully into the flames in the stove. She had never been less safe in all her life. To Gillian, brought up in the convent atmosphere, integrity of spirit mattered most and she thanked whatever guardian angel had given her the strength to utter that desperate cry.

  'Come on, little one,' Madelisa coaxed, pulling up a chair to the kitchen table. 'You think too deep. Come and eat of Madelisa's lovely soup. After that, you will eat your favourite food - T-bone steak with sauce from your mother's recipe.'

  Gillian smiled her thanks at the kind, unselfish old woman, and sat down to eat. However, her thoughts kept returning, against her will, to Dirk and her obsessive love for him. She had come to a decision about one thing: she would stay out of temptation's way. She would have as little to do with him as possible.

  The telephone rang in the passage. It was Eve.

  'Gillian?'

  'Yes?'

  'Remember after the dance I was making coffee?'

  'Yes?'

  'Graham came to the kitchen to tell me you must be off. ...'

  'I remember.'

  'It was then he told me of his promise to take you to the Incwala. He asked me to deputize if he couldn't be back in time. He isn't back yet, is he?'

  'No.'

  'Would you like to go?'

  'Love to, Eve.'

  'Tomorrow, if it's fine, I'll call for you.'

  'Why, thanks, Eve - that's wonderful! Madelisa's going to a funeral and I would have been all alone.'

  'Have an early lunch. I'll be at your place at one.'

  Gillian, taken completely out of herself at the prospect of viewing the famed and most important of all Swazi ritual ceremonies, went to the kitchen to tell Madelisa the news. 'What do I wear, Madelisa?'

  'Not slacks, Nkosazana. Wear a dress. It's more respectful.'

  The telephone rang again.

  Gillian put down her spoon and jumped up. 'Aren't we popular today?' she exclaimed, giving the smiling Madelisa a playful slap on her enormous buttocks to cheer up the sad old soul.

  'Gillian?' It was as if a paralysis had suddenly taken her in its grip. Try as she would, her voice and speech organs refused to function. 'Gillian! Are you there? Answer me!' Dirk's voice sounded urgent.

  At last she found her tongue. 'What is it you want?'

  'I must speak to you - immediately. May I come over?'

  'No!' Her voice was thick with tears.

  'Gillian?'

  'No! I said - no! Leave me al-o-ne,' she sobbed.

  She heard him bang down the receiver.

  Gillian ran to the bathroom to remove the traces of tears. When she re-entered the kitchen, Madelisa informed her that there was someone outside, waiting to speak to her.

  'Who is it?

  'Old Mogogula.'

  'Mogogula?'

  'The boss boy over the cowhands in your father's day. Nkosan Grem puts him in charge when the men go to the Incwala.'

  ' Why leave him out in the rain?'

  'The rain has stopped, Nkosazana.'

  'It's still drizzling slightly. Let's bring him to the fire. He must be wet.'

  The old man was leaning against the kitchen wall, and sank on his haunches as Gillian appeared in the doorway. He greeted her with a toothless smile. A drenched sack, with one corner folded into the other to form a hood, covered his head, but excep
t for an umuchi of wild cats' tails around his loins, and beads around his neck and ankles, he was naked. The face was wizened, the eyes black and beady; a pointed .

  beard of grey fuzz moved up and down like a baton accompanying his words.

  'Nkosazana, I bring bad news.'

  'What is it, Mogogula?'

  The evil thing - it has come.'

  'What evil thing? Speak.'

  'Foot-and-mouth.'

  'I have already heard. It is across the border in Mozambique.'

  He shook his head sadly and said with lowered eyelids: 'It is here, Nkosazana.'

  'What do you mean by "here"?' There was a note of anxiety in her voice.

  'The Impala Ranch. Our cattle are sick.'

  'Oh, no!' Gillian cried in dismay. 'This is impossible ! It can't be true!'

  The old man hung his head sorrowfully, and said, almost apologetically: 'It is as I say.'

  'Then you must take me to them; but first you must eat. Come inside.'

  He removed the soaked hessian hood from his head and placed it neatly on the doorstep. Then he followed her deferentially into the kitchen.

  While Madelisa fed him, Gillian went for her white mackintosh, gumboots and woollen gloves. The old man ate hurriedly, then led the way to the river.

  'Shouldn't the cattle be in the pens with all this rain?' Gillian enquired.

  'There is more protection under the trees,' he said.

  A terrible thought struck her: Dirk's urgent telephone call - had she misinterpreted its purpose? The immediacy in his voice - had he rung to tell her of the calamity that had befallen her? She jumped a puddle and came alongside the old man. 'Tell me, Mogogula, does Nkosan Dirk know?'

  'It is he who opened old Mogogula's eyes, Nkosazana.'

  'Oh, what a fool I've been,' she thought. 'What a stupid, self-centred fool!'

  They reached the bank of the river. Under the same tree as before stood the handsome young cowherd with the red feather in his hair, and the buck's horn slung from his wrist. His muscled black torso glistened with raindrops. A large herd of Nguni cattle stood miserably under the dripping trees. A sudden sunburst transformed the foliage world into a fairyland of glittering, diamonds joyously proclaiming that the rain had ceased.