Dearest enemy

by Kathryn Blair

  "Yes, I did know, but I'd already invited Fenella when I remembered, and I didn't care to let her down as this was to be her first festa."

  "So?" It was less a query than a sarcastic comment. "You were at liberty to use a native messenger in order to acquaint Miss Harcourt with your changed plans. Her first festa need only have been postponed." He paused and

  calmly added, "You will drive to the camp at once, Frankland, and for your sake I trust there has been no trouble during your absence. I will see that Miss Harcourt is taken care of."

  Austin summoned a little of his former confidence. "Very well, senhor. So long, Fenella. I'm awfully sorry it turned out this way."

  His departure was almost nonchalant; he even stopped a few yards away to light a cigarette and puff a cloud of smoke. In the flare of his match as he waved it out Fenella saw the absurd gold rings dangling from his ears. She breathed deeply, and looked at Carlos.

  In the white suit of irreproachable cut, his thick black hair brushed back and his brows faintly arched with mockery as his glance swerved from the receding Austin to the present Fenella, he personified all that she found most irritating. The sarcastic, imperious senhor.

  But she waited for him to speak. She did not dare to utter the fierce resentment which burned not far from the tip of her tongue, and to attempt banality was beyond her powers at present.

  "Please be seated again, senhorita. We will have some wine and try to be pleasant with each other."

  "If you will allow me the use of your car," she said distantly, "I would prefer to go home."

  "That would be unfair to me. I am not your enemy unless you wish it that way." He turned to the hovering waiter. "Wine, Alvares, and a dish of your savouries."

  "Certamente, senhor. Whatever the senhor demands!"

  Against her will, Fenella slid back into her basket-chair. Carlos sat opposite, where Austin had been, and he jested lightly with Alvares in Portuguese while the wine was served and the snacks chosen from a trolley. When the table was secluded once more, Carlos raised his glass.

  "To your eyes, senhorita. May they not sparkle in vain for the Englishman."

  Again she quelled her anger. An outburst would get her nowhere at all with Carlos Pereira; he was too expert in dealing with human failings. With a trace of his own satire, she said evenly, "You misunderstand, senhor. A woman's eyes do not sparkle only with love."

  "In other words you are angry . . . but that is obvious, and reprehensible. You are angry because while the festa is still young I have sent Frankland back to the camp. So much wasted and muddled emotion is a pity."

  "You're being very blunt, senhor!"

  He lifted one shoulder. "With no intention to offend you. It was your father's duty to warn you against Frankland, not mine. But the good doctor is out of touch with such things, and you, if I may say so, are not worldly enough to discriminate between the shallow and the deep. I confess to being disappointed in you."

  "Because I count Austin Frankland as a friend?"

  He drank some more wine before replying, with unmistakable deliberation, "I rather think that you regard him as more than a friend. You are bewitched by his nonsense, captivated by his veneer of charm, as others have been before you." Restrained contempt hardened his tones. "Did he give you the scarlet mantilha?"

  By now Fenella was tense with impotent rage. Clearly this attack called for a strong verbal defence on cold, reasoning lines, but she was in no state to conduct one at the moment.

  She answered swiftly, "Yes, he did."

  "So?" Again that infuriating inflection which mingled satire with a sneer and tilted at her waning composure. "Frankland has been here long enough to comprehend our customs. The scarlet mantilha is rarely worn, and never by the young. The black or white is more suitable."

  Fenella sprang up. "This is not my country, senhor, and I don't have to fall in with your conception of decorum. In England we wear what best becomes us, not the fashions dictated by our ancestors . . ."

  Carlos, too, was standing. "We will not stay here to attract the curious," he interrupted curtly. "Come with me."

  Fenella had scarcely stirred before inflexible fingers closed round her arm, just above the elbow. There was to be no escape. He marched her down the lane between the tables, smiling with fixed politeness upon all who turned his way. To the curtseys of some girls in peasant dress he returned an automatic nod and the same set smile.

  The dancing had ceased for a while and couples sat about on the grass, listening to a song from Lario and joining in softly as he reached the refrain. In other company Fenella would have paused to listen, but now she was depleted of all energy and enthusiasm for the festa. The arrogance and intolerance of Carlos had shed a blight over the evening.

  How dare he twit her with being infatuated with Austin! No; twit was too feeble a word to convey the rigid scorn in his manner, the curling distaste of his mouth. His interference in her affairs would have been incredible in any other man Let him think what he liked. Other women might dreamily obey his commands, but she had no intention of allowing him to impose his personality upon her own.

  And how dangerous and powerful that personality could be she was only now beginning to grasp, when his shoulder was behind hers and an electrical warmth radiated alarmingly from his grip on her arm.

  They were leaving the lights and following a path which was bordered with heavily scented bushes. Ahead, between two groups of cypresses, the fabulous moon was fast disappearing, and the night air caressed Fenella's hot cheeks as if to remind her that the sheen and serenity of the moon were gifts of bountiful nature.

  At a marble seat with carved ends and no back he stopped, and dropped his hand. Before he could order her to sit down, Fenella said:

  "Senhor Pereira, it would be best if I went home now. I have no wish to talk."

  "You are afraid?" he asked, facing her. "I should have said that you are a girl of great courage, and I already know you to be independent and outspoken." His gesture, a shrug and a movement of one hand, was very foreign. "You are wrong if you think I object to your wearing a mantilha, either in public or elsewhere. A white one would become you, and delicate beauty has never failed to rouse my admiration. But I cannot admire a woman who is captured by cheap banter and the facile flattery which are the stock-in-trade of the adventurer."

  "I must get along without your admiration," she told him coldly. "Nothing you could say or do would make me break off friendship with Austin Frankland."

  He drew a sharp, annoyed breath. "You are either purposely mistaking my motive or intrigued with the idea of falling in love with the man."

  Fenella's chin lifted and her mouth was firm. "If I were falling in love with him it would be no business of yours, Senhor Pereira. Austin is English and so am I. He happens to be employed by you and therefore in no position to ventilate his views, but I'm not bound to Machada in any way. I don't even belong to the mission, except as the visiting daughter of the doctor. I'm not forced by race and tradition to bend the knee to the great senhor, and go all hysterical with gratitude when he deigns to speak to me . . ."

  In spite of the rising passion within her she broke off, startled at the sudden tightening of the formidable jaw and the tensing of the thin, aristocratic nostrils. Though they were a foot apart she felt his fury as if it were something tangible and gripping.

  She was unnerved, shaken by the enormity of an offence which she had undoubtedly committed, though its precise outline was obscure. Not that she would have retracted one syllable, but his silence and the rigid, alien cast of his features held a terrifying threat. Her courage, whatever Carlos might think of it, was not equal to a glance up at his eyes.

  "Por dews," he breathed at last. "You have said enough!"

  And then Fenella raised her head. The sinking moon showed her the points of fire in his eyes and the savage compression of his lips. She was seized with an involuntary trembling, which ceased as unexpectedly as it had begun. This situation was unbearable;
it simply had to be terminated.

  "It's true," she said, her voice desperately steady. "You may be the despot of Machada, but I am not one of your subjects."

  The moment it was out Fenella knew she had gone too far. The choice of nouns had been typically impulsive and entirely unwise. From their first meeting she had known that Carlos possessed a ruthless temper, but then she had imagined it cold and governed, the spears of his wrath tipped with ice. Never, in her wildest flights of fancy, had she thought he could look like this—so big and taut, his

  teeth snapped together in a smile that was antique and violent.

  Dazedly, she felt the vice of his hands on her shoulders and a raging hot breath across her forehead and his mouth came down quite close to hers. For a moment her eyes closed tightly while she willed sanity into her brain and sinews. It was the most frightening minute she had ever lived through. Then she was released, swaying still from the spent cyclone of his anger.

  In thick, unfamiliar tones he said, "We will go to the car, Miss Harcourt. Not again by the lake. This way."

  She walked at his side. There was no guiding touch at her elbow, no amicable exchange of the small coin of conversation; neither was capable of it. Carlos was a tall, striding stranger. Without examining his profile against the subdued radiance of the sky, she knew that it was angular and remote, and that his whole being was vibrant with a strange self-contempt. They left the gardens by a side path which led to a tiled sidewalk between a hedge of smilax and the chain of parked vehicles. There were two Pereira cars.

  "The chauffeur has been given leave to enjoy the festa till midnight," explained Carlos coolly. "I will drive you myself."

  Fenella got into her seat, and leaned back while he made certain that her dress would not be caught, and closed the door. She could not relax. Her muscles were unnaturally contracted, and lead filled the space which belonged to her heart. As the car sped along the deserted Avenida Paiva Manso she stared through the windscreen. The saloon was large and wide; a third person could comfortably have sat between them.

  Carlos drove straight to the mission by the shortest route. When he helped her out he was his impenetrable self once more, except that, in the light from the veranda, lines of tiredness showed at the corners of his eyes, and he kept his glance averted above her head.

  "I must apologise," he said, "for terminating your first festa so abruptly. Good night, Miss Harcourt."

  Fenella answered him and went into the house. Fortunately, her father had gone to bed, so she could stay in the lounge till her head cleared and she was more inclined

  for sleep. Dispiritedly, she lifted the mantilha from her shoulders and folded it. As well as the despondency, she felt emotionally and physically spent. The evening which had started so brightly had ended in a catastrophe of some magnitude, though Fenella could not fathom precisely how it had occurred.

  She lit a cigarette and immediately squashed it out, snapped off the lights and passed into her bedroom. At the dressing-table she unclasped her necklet and slipped off her watch. She extracted the wilting flower from her hair and remained with it between her fingers while she searched the dark-eyed reflection in the mirror, and asked of it questions which had no answer.

  What had happened? Her rash words had unleashed a terrible tide of anger which Carlos had controlled just a fraction too late. He would never forgive her, never forget that she had goaded him to the verge of kissing her. Not kissing her as a man kisses the woman he loves. In his rage he had wanted to hurt and chastise, and there is so little a man can do to a woman in such circumstances

  Fenella backed and sat on the side of the bed to take off her shoes. A weight seemed to have descended upon her head and her heart. By the morning it might have lifted. She hoped so.

  It so happened that she was blessedly busy for the next few days. Mrs. Westwood was tied to her bed with a severe bout of tick typhus, and though her houseboy was an able nurse and housekeeper, there were many other duties which she begged Fenella to undertake. One of them was superintending the children's midday meal at the mission.

  This was a pleasing task, for the whole thing was run by two white-aproned native women who were quick to spot lapses of discipline and inflict penalties which were sometimes amusing. Fenella stood near a door and watched the older ones fix bibs upon the smaller and serve the food into deep soup plates. The children ate chopped meat and mealie pap followed by a mixture of prepared fresh fruits. A grave child with her short black wool parted into inch-square sections and plaited, carefully set aside her slice of pineapple till the mango, banana and papaw were eaten,

  after which she slowly chewed the pineapple with relish and gave a huge, contented sigh. Others had similar endearing habits.

  Grace was said, and the girls washed up the plates and spoons while the boys swept the floor and straightened the chairs at the tables ready for lessons. After the play interval Fenella returned to supervise a series of educational games. The class was well-behaved and not inquisitive. Possibly they were feeling the effect of food and the brooding heat of the day—or they might have decided that the effort of understanding her spare pidgin was too exhausting. Fenella found herself wishing that she had a smattering of Portuguese, and thrusting away the wish as if it were treason.

  Austin did not appear that weekend but Fenella hardly missed him. She was being drawn into the younger set who lived in the few grand houses near the church. Their parents gave sherry parties for them which invariably started at five-thirty and finished at seven; these were a concession to progress which everyone found exhilarating. Fenella liked them, too, once the fear of meeting Carlos was dispersed. Apparently he did occasionally drop in to take a drink and bestow an indulgent smile on the noble youth of Machada, but Fenella never encountered him at such a gathering.

  It was at the house of a wealthy exporter who had sons and daughters of marrying age that Fenella met Maria de Cardena for the second time. During a pause in a discussion with a journalist who had been educated in Lisbon and was about to join the staff of a well-known paper in Lourenco Marques, she looked up and saw the effervescent Maria laughing gaily with a group nearby. Fenella studied her for a minute, the nicely rounded figure in a tan silk suit, the abundant black wavy hair held back by a diamond bow, the bright pink which mantled the olive skin of her cheeks. She was pretty and full of spirit. When she turned and noticed Fenella the smile stayed on the red lips, but its quality altered. She came over.

  "Bons dias, Miss Harcourt. It is truly marvellous that we should have the good luck to meet again." Which was extravagant but essentially Maria, as Fenella was eventually to learn. "May I sit with you?"

  The journalist had already risen and bowed. Sensing that his presence was no longer necessary, he bowed again, and moved away.

  "You come often to these parties, senhorita?" Maria demanded urgently.

  "Quite often." Fenella smiled. "I haven't seen you at one before."

  "No." A shadow chased across the sunny countenance and vanished. "My mother does not care for me to attend them—she considers cocktail parties just a little bit indecoroso—not very refined, you understand? But I am sympathetic to the English way of life, and I think that these parties, where one takes a little wine in the company of men, are immense fun. In Portugal girls are not so hemmed in by convention, but here in Machada everyone wishes to keep the old customs as if they were sacred. You cannot appreciate bow they are irksome!"

  "No one else seems to mind them," said Fenella temperately. "In fact, the people of Machada are the happiest I've met. I expect you're just a natural rebel."

  "That is what Austin says!" She sounded delighted, even when she begged, "Tell me what you think of Austin. He is very handsome, is he not, and so beautifully fair—almost as fair as you, Miss Harcourt, but his eyes are not the same blue. They are like the sea and yours are like the night. May I call you Fenella?"

  "You may."

  "Austin told me your name, and he explained that you are stayin
g at the mission. After I had seen you with him at the festa I made him tell me all about you."

  "But he hasn't been to town since then."

  Maria shrugged, her eyes were merry. "There is such a thing as subterfuge, you know, and I am well acquainted with the road to the camp."

  "But isn't that dangerous?"

  "Of course it is dangerous. Everything exciting is dangerous. Austin gets frantic, but how else can I see him? Even so we are only together for a few minutes and always in the heat of the day when my mother takes siesta. How I envy your English unbringing and freedom, the way you girls are allowed to smoke and to learn to drive, and even to possess your own motor cars. I am so impatient for the

  days when Austin will take me away from here so that I, also, may experience how wonderful it is to do as one likes!"

  Fenella deemed it expedient to accept a sherry she did not need and to linger over tasting it. Austin was right. Maria, in her daring, constituted a menace not only to his peace of mind but to his job. It must be frightful to have her turn up at the camp vivid and eager, and to have to send her away again almost at once, uncertain all the while as to whether her escapade would become public. For such a disaster would undoubtedly mean the end of his sojourn in Mozambique, and, much as Austin disliked his work, Fenella rather thought that he would not care to be deprived of the generous salary without the prospect of something nearly as good elsewhere. Surely Maria understood how he was placed?

  "Wouldn't it be wiser to go carefully till Austin can plan for you?" asked Fenella. "After all, you'd be much happier if it were possible to marry him here, with your parents' consent, and settle somewhere in this district."

  "That would be best," Maria agreed more soberly. "I have lived in Machada most of my life and I should miss my family and friends. But my father is the obstacle. He will never permit the marriage."