"That was a very, deep sigh," commented Carlos. "You have done too much this morning. The American was complaisant but indefatigable."
"It was good of you to take him to the Quinta against your will," she said formally.
"So I have pleased you at last, senhorita, by taking seriously one of these mancebos . . . these easy-going young men to whom you are attracted." His smile was bland and distant. "We will not pursue that matter'. At what time will your father be available?"
"We lunch at one."
"I am afraid I cannot wait so long, and possibly he will be in need of rest after several hours' work. You will give him a message?"
"Certainly, senhor."
"Very well." He rounded the corner which Fenella had brought close with the binoculars. "Tell him that the fluoroscope and the X-ray apparatus which we ordered from England have now reached Alimane; I have the advice of it this morning. Tomorrow the cases will be released from the custom house, and I would like him to go with me and check the contents with his list in the presence of a representative of the insurance company and a customs official."
Fenella nodded. "I'll do that, senhor."
"Ask the doctor," said Carlos as they slowed beside the mission, "to let me know when he will be free tomorrow, and I will arrange my day to fit in—it is to be entirely at his convenience. Compreender-lo?"
"My father will be grateful for your consideration, senhor."
"We will not again discuss this question of gratitude, senhorita," he said brusquely.
The car had stopped and Carlos was already out on the path, opening the door for her; but there was no light assistance at her elbow, and his farewell bow was stiffly sardonic and without warmth.
Fenella was thankful that the tourists were still in the veranda, so that she could convey Burt Winsten's request to be collected at the post office and remain with her back to the track till the big car had flashed away into the distance. As soon as the visitors had departed she returned to her task of indexing in her father's surgery, but it was difficult to get back into the even, business-like mood of early morning, and she found herself making foolish mistakes.
When Dr. Harcourt came in to lunch he sank heavily into an easy-chair and took his aperitif—a small amount of brandy in a tumblerful of soda. With relief he stretched his legs and eased the small of his back into a cushion.
"You've had a hard morning," said Fenella. "How did the operation go?"
"It was more serious than it might have been if the child's mother had brought him a week ago, but that was only to be expected. If one could stop them rubbing filthy herbs into open wounds and trying out their incantations, a doctor's job would be comparatively simple. The Tonga are not an unhealthy race. Top up my glass, will you, my dear? I always sweat profusely in gown and mask "
"Poor darling." Fenella squirted the sparklet and handed the drink back to him. "Senhor Pereira came up to see you but he couldn't wait."
She passed on the senhor's message and her father's face cleared of weariness. He sat up straight with his elbows along his knees.
"That's great news, just what I needed," he said. "Now we shall be able to throw out the antediluvian contraption which was loaned to us till the final section of our equipment should arrive. It's been an almost complete liability. Carlos ordered those things many months ago and we've both been fuming at the delay in delivery."
"You won't forget to see about tomorrow?"
"I could be ready at three. Write a note and get Antonio to send it to the Quinta this afternoon. Carlos will pick me up here. He's always keen to save the good doctor trouble." His mouth was humorous as he said this, but there were friendliness and admiration in his tone. "Did I ever tell you about the boy who was injured during a game hunt?" He emptied his glass and went on, "It wasn't long after I came, but I already knew Carlos fairly well. He had some men down from Beira—enthusiastic hunters. So he organised an elephant hunt and I was invited, more or less in an official capacity. The old mission doctor was still here then, so I went. Well, we chased elephant though we didn't kill any, but one night the camp was threatened by lions, and during the ensuing excitement a native boy was shot in the thigh by one of our number " He shook his head reminiscently. "You should have seen Carlos with that
boy. He carried him to his tent, and while I extracted the bullet—it was embedded in bone so took some time—he talked away in Tonga while the boy gazed at him in adoration. Heaven knows what he said but it worked better than an anaesthetic. Once the wound was dressed the boy could have been moved, but Carlos wouldn't hear of it. He shared my tent that night."
Fenella did not comment, but she did tell herself that such an incident rendered even less comprehensible the cold and mocking senhor who possessed such a capacity for savage anger.
When he drove up at exactly three the following afternoon and was shown by an awestruck Antonio into the doctor's lounge, it seemed to Fenella that the room, which comfortably held the customary articles of furniture with plenty of polished floor space between the rugs, had become overcrowded. Carlos was no broader than Austin and only an inch or two taller, yet his presence reduced the room to suffocating proportions which were not apparent when Austin Frankland was there.
The fact was, Fenella acknowledged with an alarming twinge of bitterness, Carlos belonged to the spacious magnificence of the Quinta. He was entirely out of place in this small modern adobe villa which, as her father had once pointed out, was the ideal setting for herself.
His glance flickered impersonally over her face, took in the flowered print housefrock.
"You do not, then, desire a jaunt into Alimane?" he enquired.
"No, thank you, senhor."
"I suggested she should dress up and make an outing of it, but Fenella thought she might be in the way," mentioned Dr. Harcourt from the doorway.
"That would not be so," Carlos stated. "There are the shops and tea in the square near the band. However, we will not persuade her against her inclination. You are ready, doctor?"
In the days which followed it became obvious that that brief dismissive speech was to be the keynote of their future relationship. Carlos came over to see the new equipment installed and tested. He came again to watch the X-ray at work on several plantation labourers and to hear
their cases diagnosed. And each time he sat for a while on the doctor's veranda and dissected, from an intelligence as lithe and economical as his body, the medical problems attending so large and primitive a native population, and the innovations which must continually be put into practice.
Fenella inevitably sat nearby sewing, as became an unmarried young woman in Machada society. Carlos seldom spoke to her except in greeting. He was treating her exactly as he would treat the daughter of one of his friends in town, except that with them he might have made teasing comments about suitors. While he was a daily guest, Fenella's whole existence had the flavour of unreality and a core of restlessness.
The weekend came and with it Austin, high-spirited as a released prisoner.
"We'll go dancing," he told Fenella, "and not in Machada. I'll take you to the coast to wine, dine and dance beneath the stars, on a rooftop. A low rooftop, my sweet; it's never wise to look too high."
A maxim which applied equally to both.
There was pleasure in being with a man so easily understood, satisfaction in knowing that one could be natural and unafraid. Fenella began cautiously to expand. She told him about the meeting with Maria. He put a few rather odd questions, went quiet for a spell and chose a different subject for conversation.
As Austin had promised, the evening was lively and enjoyable. They had dinner in a mosquito-proofed roof-garden at a table set between a young pine-cob palm and a species of euphorbia which grew from circles cut out of the tiled floor. Banks of flowers obscured the stone parapet, and the cupolas which sprouted from it at intervals like large golden onions were outlined in coloured lights. The Portuguese love of light and colour was infectious; it was
seeping into Fenella's own veins.
They danced for two hours, and towards midnight they wound away in the ramshackle sports car over the fine earth roads of Alimane towards Machada. The air rushed cool and sweet over the brow. The coconut-palms stretched up, incredibly tall, to rustle their fans gently against the
wine-dark heavens. What a delicious relief were the long moonless nights after the blaze of day.
Before he said good night, Austin vowed that the evening at the coast had been a tonic.
"Because we like each other a lot but aren't in love," he elucidated, "and you're not likely to misconstrue my lightest remark, we can be entirely natural with each other. As a matter of fact, I rather wish we were in love. How simple my life would be then. But I suppose life isn't meant to be simple for the young."
"It might be less complicated in England than in Mozambique," she said.
"How long are you staying?"
"At the beginning my father set the limit at six months, and I thought that would be ample. Since then he's acted as if I'm here for good."
"No one can blame him for wanting to keep you with him. Would you like, to spend the rest of your life in Africa?"
"Yes . . . no." Fenella laughed self-consciously. "I don't know. Back in England I had the thing cut and dried: a few months in Portuguese East Africa and then home again, feeling a bigger and better woman, to a new job. Mozambique was meant to be merely a holiday interlude, but the country has an insidious grip. Insidious isn't really the word. . . ."
"Yes, it is," he said, and laughed too. "We're enmeshed in it up to the eyebrows, Fenella, but we have one another, thank the stars!"
He had worked through two weekends while Miguel was sick, and was now entitled to a few days' break. Having obtained the senhor's permission, he would stay in Machada till next Wednesday evening. With enthusiasm, he accepted Fenella's invitation to come in for a meal whenever it suited him. Then he blew her a kiss and drove away.
It surprised and intrigued Fenella that Maria de Cardena should attend the mission service next morning. Portuguese from the town did occasionelly honour the Westwoods in this way, for both the missionary and his wife were well liked, but Fenella got the impression, from Maria's demure demeanour as she took a seat beside her mother,
and her ladylike nod when she met Fenella's glance, that a thickly cloaked object lay behind the visit.
It was not till the service had ended and she was presented to the Senhora de Cardena, who, after all, was only a middle-aged mother determined to educate her capricious daughter to be a competent adult, that Fenella glimpsed Maria's purpose.
"Fenella is good, solid English, as you see, Mother," the girl declared. "She spends much of her time at the mission and is of a serious disposition. There could be no harm in my coming here alone in the car."
"Indeed, no." This appeared to be the extent of the senhora's English, for, with an apologetic gesture towards Fenella, she finished what she had to say to Maria in her own tongue.
There followed an animated exchange between the two, after which Maria shed a brilliant smile upon Fenella.
"My mother says I may have lunch with you, if it is convenient. Please agree, Fenella!"
It was arranged. Solicitously, Maria saw her mother ensconced in the grand but ancient vehicle which was to return for her at two-thirty, and ecstatically she watched it slowly vanish down the hill.
"This is like a dream coming true!" she exclaimed, swiftly gripping Fenella and kissing her cheek. "Perhaps at last everything will come right. You will not be vexed if I tell you that Austin, also, will eat lunch with us? Was it wicked of me to . . . to manipulate?"
Fenella was not sure. A few seconds ago she had hoped that Austin would stroll in upon them, unaware, till his eyes lit upon Maria, that this was to be a special day for him. But that their meeting at the doctor's house should have been contrived between them savoured of thoughtlessness as far as she was concerned, and danger to all three. It was taking rather too much for granted. She thrust away the unworthy reflection that the evening out with Austin might have been intended in the nature of a bribe, that he had made this appointment with Maria before deciding to give Fenella dinner at the coast. Regarded in that light, the whole business repelled and made her want to harden against him. Yet where were they to turn for sympathy and encouragement for their romance?
Maria said "You are displeased, Fenella—I should have known. I am so sorry to have done this, but how else could we be together for an hour?" The dark eyes brimmed, and were dabbed at with a scrap of lace.
"It's all right," said Fenella hastily. "It's better for you to see Austin this way than to take the risk of going to the camp. That was madness. But I wonder if it would not be happier for you, in the long run, if you were to cease meeting him altogether?"
As she gazed at Fenella, Maria's mobile face became distorted with grief and incredulity. "I would die," she whispered. "Austin is my world . . . my life. I do not care that he has no money, no rich connections. I will farm with him as our peasant wives farm with their husbands. Oh, yes! I could do it, Fenella. Do not laugh at me."
"I'm not laughing, only trying to be practical. Where will a clandestine affair get you?"
By the time Maria had been made to understand the meaning of the word "clandestine" she was smiling again and tossing those gleaming black curls.
"But that is true romance, Fenella! Who wishes to sit in a dim lounge with a correct young man two yards away, and a silent mother sewing near the window. That is what happens, I give you my word. I could not marry a man who would be content with such a courtship."
For which Fenella hardly blamed her. Maria's prediliction for the melodramatic turn of phrase did not obscure the fact that although she could have made an excellent match in Machada or Alimane, she still preferred the prospect of an uncertain future with Austin. Not that he was penniless at present; as the wife of a plantation superintendent Maria would not have to work, and if her clothes were fewer they would not deteriorate in quality. Much depended on his keeping his position on the estate.
A little later Austin greeted Maria with a calculated jocularity which divulged nothing. The doctor, somewhat astonished at the extra guest but politely paternal with them all, withdrew as soon as lunch was over. Austin, Fenella and Maria rested on the veranda and chatted, and when eventually the de Cardena equipage rolled to a halt on the path, Fenella's doubts were practically dispersed.
After Maria had gone, Austin sat down again and got out cigarettes.
"I always liked visiting this house, even before you came and trebled its attractions," he said. "It was like you to get Maria here today."
Fenella was puzzled and a little annoyed, till she realised that a man placed as Austin was must, at all costs, hang on to his pride. He didn't want her to know haw badly he needed contact with Maria. Involuntarily, she softened towards him, and mentally excused what had at first appeared as a lack of consideration for herself.
"So long as no one gets hurt," she answered carelessly. "I wouldn't care to be involved in anything sticky."
"You won't be," he assured her, "and it will lift a load from my mind at the camp. You'd never guess what I've gone through down there, at various times."
Which meant, Fenella presumed, that Maria was likely to become a regular guest. On the face of it the idea was fairly harmless, but its implications caused her uneasiness. Maria was so volatile and frothy, yet so determined to have her own way; she was as unpredictable as a jumping cracker. Fenella would have cared less had there been a secret engagement between them. To flout convention on behalf of a couple bound together by a mutual declaration of love might be exhilarating. However, that would come.
During Austin's brief leave from the camp Maria came three times to the doctor's house. She sparkled at Austin, adored his raillery and tried to match it, and when they parted laid her hand confidingly in his, as if she understood all that was in his heart yet could not be spoken. Watching them, Fene
lla began to feel happier about her own part in their relationship.
* * *
* * *
CHAPTER SEVEN
AFTER Austin had driven off to the camp Fenella turned her attention to tasks which had recently been neglected. There was the parcelling of Aunt Anna's brocade cocktail blouse and a letter to advise its despatch and convey birthday greetings. The mending had fallen behind, and Dr. Harcourt's records needed bringing up to date. Some books had to be returned to the Senhora Seixas, and Fenella was still undecided whether to accept that scholarly woman's offer to give her lessons in the language; this latter was a question upon which her heart and her head were at war. Obviously a knowledge of Portuguese would be of little use to her in the future; yet she knew instinctively that the country and its spoken tongue already had their place in her inmost being.
Late on Friday afternoon she walked to the post office, enjoying the vista as she descended to the level of the town; an inexhaustible pastime, for the panorama included the vivid green of palms, the near-black of cedar and a multitude of shades between them, red-tiled roofs, and roofs chrome-yellow and hydrangea-blue, and the hot white shapes of houses and shops.
She bought her stamps and posted Aunt Anna's parcel, acknowledged salutations with a daring "Born dial" and, her spirits slightly elevated by the universal goodwill which pervaded the town, she made her way back through the gardens and round by the lake to the top road which wound away towards the mission.
As she mounted the mission path darkness was sweeping over the country; on one hand was the advancing purple of night, on the other the last glorious flush of day.
She dropped her hat on to the metal table on the veranda and entered the dusky lounge. Both hands were at her temples, the fingers combing back her hair to admit the deliciously cool atmosphere to her scalp. Thus, with arms raised and a faint smile on her lips, she came face to face with Carlos. In the fading light his expression was unreadable.
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