Dearest enemy

by Kathryn Blair

  Three minutes later he had stopped outside the doctor's house and was helping her from the car.

  She said, "There's no need to wait, Carlos. I told your chauffeur to come back for me at twelve, and it's nearly that already."

  "Nevertheless, I will wait and send him away. It is not often that I inspect the mission." In the brilliant light he regarded her keenly. "There are smudges wader your eyes. Is it the headache?"

  She nodded. "I walked too quickly."

  "You are also worried about something. Go in, now. Later, you must tell me what you have on your mind, and I will help you."

  He said it flatly, as though there were no problem of hers that he could not solve. She was tempted to unburden herself right away, to say, "I must hand a letter to Austin Frankland. Please instruct your chauffeur to drive me to the camp this afternoon." But she could be sure that Carlos would not act without posing questions. Blind compliance from him was too much to expect and she dare not bring Maria's name into it.

  She smiled at him faintly, and went in to take a tepid dip and slip on a fresh frock. When she came back to the lounge Carlos was there. Without speaking, he filled

  a tumbler from a carafe of fresh water, dropped two large tablets into and, after watching them effervesce for a second, made her drain the glass.

  "I begged them from the dispenser," he said. "They will clear the head. Make yourself comfortable for ten minutes."

  "But Antonie . . ."

  "The car has come and gone. She will know." He lowered himself into an easy-chair across the room from where she sat, and stretched long, white-trousered legs. "What is it that troubles you?"

  Fenella was ready for this. "A detail, senhor, which I can set right myself now that I'm more composed."

  "You are still angry with me because I did not show sufficient respect for the object of your ,tender emotions. I cannot show what I do not feel, my child." His mouth was smiling, revealing white, even teeth, but his eyes did not smile. "We will be quiet, then, till you are ready to move."

  He reached for a magazine and opened it, shutting her out, thought Fenella, because he would not tolerate independence in a woman. He couldn't be expected to divine how desperately she ached to depend on him, how gladly she would have placed her whole existence in his hands. He turned a page and began reading; she was supposed to close her eyes and give the tablets a chance to work. But she could not withdraw her glance from the pink scar in his palm which, even at this distance, was clearly visible above the edge of the page his fingers held.

  With a superlative effort she forced herself to think about the letter which she had transferred to her dress pocket. Incredible that it should be so difficult to travel undetected to the camp. She had never heard of Machada possessing a cab rank, though it was not beyond the limits of possibility. A directory might divulge the necessary telephone number, but the only telephone was in the clinic; true, it had an extension to her father's surgery, which was just through the door over there, but numbers were obtained by the nurse on duty and a private call would surely rouse curiosity. For several reasons a taxi or a borrowed car from outside the mission was out of the

  question. But she really must decide on a course to follow before tomorrow morning.

  Restlessly, she pushed up from her chair and went to the door. Carlos tossed aside his journal and joined her. "The head is better?"

  "Yes . . . yes, thank you, it's much better. The tablets did the trick." Drawing in her lip she looked at him Carlos, I can't go with you to the Quinta today."

  He elevated one brow. "This is very sudden, is it not .. . and just a trifle ungracious? It was all arranged yesterday; we are to have an early lunch—though it will not be so early, after all—and a drive inland. You have not forgotten that I would introduce you and Antonie to a very old senhora who makes beautiful lace?"

  She had forgotten. In a. flash she was feverishly alert. The lacemaker of Ibana!' And Ibana was .. .

  "Forgive me. Yes, I am ungracious," she said hurriedly. "I'll go with you, Carlos. I would not wish to disappoint Antonie."

  His glance had a curious intensity, and his lips thinned with suspicion or scorn, or some emotion equally unpleasant. With deadly clairvoyance Fenella knew that she had let herself down in his esteem. How fatally easy it is to say the wrong thing; how impossible to retract. The journey to the Quinta was almost wordless.

  Antonie came down to the courtyard to meet them. Her olive skin glowed in contrast with the pale lavender silk dress she wore.

  "But how late you both are," she exclaimed. "Lunch has been ready for half an hour."

  With all of his charm Carlos smiled down upon her. "Bear with us, little cousin, and allow me five minutes to wash from my hands a morning's accumulation of grime. Fenella will explain that she had a bad head and could not come earlier."

  Over lunch Antonie was bright, almost gay. During the past weeks she had gradually lost the languor and sadness and also the look of extreme thinness. Her smile was a blend of spontaneity and practised art. With Fenella's assistance she had revived a talent for flower-painting, and an interest in music. In the smaller salon she often sat at the grand piano and played songs, to which she herself

  sang the airs in a clear contralto voice. When there were men about she even coquetted a little, though with Carlos her behaviour was less subtle, and much more confiding. Carlos was so good to her, so considerate, stated Antonie; though sometimes it must tax his ingenuity and cause him much bother, he procured everything she asked for. He was undoubtedly urn primo caro! Which, the way she said it, sounded much too lush to be translated into "a dear cousin."

  Though Fenella's manipulation of the keys would have compared creditably with Antonie's, she never played the grand. Her first refusal had been so definite that Carlos had not suggested it again; nor had he ever enquired whether Antonie was teaching her the love-songs. It seemed to satisfy him that at last the piano was being brought to life by a beautiful woman.

  For there was now no doubt about Antonie's beauty. As her days at the Quinta lengthened she took on a bloom which deepened the dark irises of her eyes and put petals in her cheeks. Her inherent poise lent her an air of sophistication which Fenella thought must be irresistible to a man accustomed to the small-town dignity of the women of Machada. The business men who came to see Carlos did not disguise their admiration of his young and comely kinswoman.

  Today, siesta was forgone. Tia Supervia put on a large black hat and an unnecessary jacket and took her place in the front seat of the car while the girls shared the back. Carlos sent a servant for parasols, and soon they were sailing along between the blue gums, whose vermillion fuzz had departed leaving brown nuts where they had been, and the wind of speed filled the car with a seeming coolness.

  They drove through the outer residential avenues of the town. Bougainvillea dripped over walls and from branches, along with bignonia and golden shower. Hibiscus flamed, and from the grass sidewalks tiny orchids peeped, pale blue, dusty-pink and yellow. Fleetingly Fenella recalled the yellow orchid she had caught from the flower-boat at the festa, and as a natural thought-sequence the scene with Carlos came back, misted and unreal. The exotic moon and Carlos gripping her shoulders, the raging breath

  upon her forehead . . . all must surely have been part of a dream.

  They left the town and followed the main road through the plantations. Tall trees grew on each side, to screen off the interminable coconut palms beyond. Fenella reflected how accustomed one became to seeing huge, luxuriant flowers rioting wild among the roots of banana and bamboo, and the bright-feathered birds which skimmed across the vision.

  As far as the sisal factory the road was familiar. Previously, Carlos had angled to the right towards the ebonies, or taken a track to the left, which led to a native village. Now, he went straight on between fields of sisal, where natives were stripping the tough outer leaves and loading them into an ox-cart.

  "Until a few years ago," he said, "we could not farm
with oxen. The tsetse fly killed them. Then we sprayed a poison by plane; it took about a week. There is no more tsetse fly and our cattle thrive."

  "We need your spray-plane for the vineyard pests in Portugal!" declared Antonie, smiling. "You do not grow grapes, Carlos?"

  "Of course we grow grapes. You have eaten them for dessert."

  "But for wine, I mean."

  "We make no wine. It would be impracticable to grow on such a scale because the grapes ripen so fast and hundreds of pounds would be wasted. As you know, only grapes in first-class condition can be used for wine." His back moved in the characteristic shrug. "Why should we make it when there is plenty of excellent quality from Oporto and Maderia? You do not wish to imperil your export trade?"

  "No, but wherever I lived I would wish to make wine. It is one of the joyous things in life. I like the grape harvest and the smell of the fermenting juice, and I like the merry-making when the wine is casked and everyone will taste it although it is not yet ready." She smiled at Fenella. "It is extraordinary that you do not drink much of it in England. Wine makes glad the heart."

  "Fenella does not need wine for that purpose," said Carlos evenly. "She has other means of uplifting her heart."

  Fenella's nerves were so taut that she could manage no more than a forced widening of her lips at Antonie.

  They must be drawing fairly near to the camp. From what she knew of Carlos he would sweep past with an airy gesture. And if the excursion to the lacemaker were protracted, it would be dark on the homeward trip. Dare she postpone seeing Austin till tomorrow? She visualised a tormented night and a comfortless dawn. Perhaps it would be safer to go to her father. That she had been a sort of conspirator with Austin and Maria might anger him, but such anger would have to be borne. It would grieve her, though, to damage the understanding and sympathy which was growing between them. And wasn't it probable that he would forbid both Austin and Maria to the house? What a catastrophe that might turn out to be, just when Maria needed her most!

  In tones which strove to be casual, she said, "Isn't the camp on this road, Carlos?"

  "It is, my child," he replied, as if that disposed of the subject.

  "I've never seen it."

  "You will see it soon. The clearing is easily visible from the road."

  It seemed as if he was reading her mind through the back of his head and maliciously making her task harder.

  Steeling herself against him, she plunged. "We've plenty of time. May we stop there for ten minutes?"

  The moment of tension was snapped by an amicable remark from Antonie.

  "Why should we not do that, Carlos? The camp is a model one, very big, very clean, and you have told us you are proud of it." She kindled, and tapped his sleeve. "And is not the Senhor Frankland there? Certainly we must stop, so that Fenella may exchange the small greeting with her namorado! I shall be charmed to meet him."

  For a searing minute Fenella hated Antonie . . . almost as much as she hated Carlos. Her hands stung with the pressure of her nails, and her teeth ached with the

  clamping of her jaws. She sat back in her corner, uncaring in that moment what Carlos did.

  Quite soon she caught a glimpse of the conical thatched roofs, and experienced a rush of gratitude when Tia Supervia became excited about the settlement, pointing with her small, thin hands.

  "How it is pretty, Carlos," the woman said. "The cream-coloured circular huts and the brown thatch, with much space between and many trees. I should enjoy to go inside one of those huts."

  "You shall go inside, Tia. Now we come to the track, and we will park under a tree. So."

  On the camp side the track was lined with gums. On the other stood a white house in a trim green lawn, and about two-hundred yards away squatted a smaller dwelling, which Fenella guessed was the house of Miguel, 'Austin's assistant. Miguel apparently had a wife, for two children played on a swing which hung from the branches of a tree, and a third crawled in the shade of a palm-roofed garden shelter.

  From the white house a man emerged, hastily slipping on a jacket and straightening it as he dropped down to the grass and came towards them.

  "Here is our superintendent," said Carlos crisply. "We have interrupted his nap." To Austin he added with sarcasm, "Good afternoon, my friend. We shall not keep you long from your work. The ladies wish to inspect a hut."

  Although no specific introduction had been effected, Austin bowed and gave that easy smile of his. His glance at Fenella was rueful, and he appeared not to notice what her eyes struggled to convey.

  "Shall I lead the way, senhor?"

  "Please. And choose a Hut which is empty. Do not offend any of the native womenfolk."

  "Most of them are at the back, in the fields."

  Austin indicated a footpath which wound through the belt of gums and went ahead. The party came out into the camp clearing, which extended more than half a mile in each direction. Each but was set in a square of beaten earth which was enclosed by a low palisade of plaited straw; this was to encourage privacy and happiness, and it also obviated the stealing of a neighbour's chickens. One

  could see tiny brown bodies rolling in the dust, and outside one of the huts a woman was grinding maize between two stones while another nearby was weaving a head-dress.

  Fenella was in no mood for sight-seeing. She dipped her head and followed the others into a hut, saw, without taking in, the primitive brick fireplace and the skins hanging from the roof beams, the grass mats upon which the natives slept, the assegais with which they attacked an itinerant leopard, and occasionally one another, and a few gourds of assorted shapes and sizes. Carlos was dilating upon the customs; the women kept to one side of the but and the men to the other; polygamy was discouraged but never punished, and so on.

  Austin remained outside the opening. Fenella could see him from the chest down, his hands in his pockets, one foot forward in a careless posture. Unobtrusively, she slid out into the sunshine and confronted him.

  He flung a quick look into the hut. "Something wrong?" he whispered.

  "I've a letter for you, from Maria. Please draw back a bit, Austin."

  He did, and she followed. The voices of Carlos and Antonie sounded perilously close, and with her hand on the letter in her pocket, she panicked, and rolled it small.

  Austin's face darkened. "We were together only yesterday, for longer than we've ever had before. What the deuce has she got to write about?"

  "She wouldn't say, but it's urgent and she was terribly frightened. Take it, Austin, and slip it out of sight at once."

  Perhaps reluctance to hear ill news made him slow, or perhaps he had expected the others to stay longer in the hut. Whatever it was, he obeyed a second too late.

  Carlos had come out and was standing a yard away, narrowly intent upon their tell-tale closeness. Then Fenella's hand was sharply withdrawn. Unsteadily, and on a pitch slightly above normal, she said:

  "I hope Tia Supervia is pleased with what she has seen."

  Carlos ignored this banality as it deserved. He turned to assist first the older woman and then Antonie through the opening. His fingers remained lightly flexed upon

  his cousin's elbow, as he said, "You have had your wish, Tia. We will now seek out the senhora who makes exquisite lace. You may desire to order some, Antonie." And he walked away between the two women, leaving Fenella to be escorted by Austin.

  Now that conversation on the beastly topic was no longer restricted, Fenella could find nothing whatever to say. She had delivered the letter and placated both her conscience and her sense of loyalty. However Carlos interpreted the brief handclasp, he could hardly think worse of her than he had thought ten minutes ago.

  Fenella got back into the car with a weight of misery behind her eyelids and a scorching lump in her throat.

  CHAP TER TEN

  THE deflated feeling hung on for several days, and most of the time Fenella spent helping Mrs. Westwood and her husband at the mission.

  "You have forsaken the Qui
nta," commented the missionary's wife archly. "I suppose the ravishing cousin is quite dug in there now?"

  Fenella nodded. It was unnecessary to explain that she had told Antonie she must be free for the rest of the week. She had no wish to enter upon a debate with Mrs. Westwood.

  "I've been slacking," she said. "Give me lots to do to make up for it."

  Mrs. Westwood complied, first with a heap of worn primers which had to be sewn up and rebound for Lario's new class of adolescents. It was a tedious job, but Fenella did it on the mission veranda where she could pause and watch the piccaninnies playing or the older girls at their beadwork. The boys were round the corner, invisible but audible while they learned to make stools and tables for their own huts. They never used the articles but were inordinately proud of possessing them.

  The tidy piles of arithmetic-and reading-books were some reward for a long, colourless day. Fenella placed them upon their shelf and, next day, turned her attention to seaming up a new supply of children's smocks on the antiquated sewing-machine. Then, with the missionary's permission, she cleared all the old examples of the pupils' drawing efforts from the walls of the mission hall, and set the children competing with one another all over again.

  Thus the week dragged by. On Saturday the mission was closed and Dr. Harcourt's patients were few. A special market was being held on the edge of the native reserve, and the Tonga had decided to postpone treatment of their ailments in order to haggle for goods which they had no intention of buying. For the first time since Fenella had come to Machada, Robert Harcourt took a book of fiction outside with him, and arranged himself for an afternoon's simple relaxation.

  When she brought tea he laid the book on the tiled floor beside his chair, pulled up another chair, and smiled across at her.

  "Considering that we share the house, it's odd how seldom you and I are alone," he said. "Either you're wafted away in a palatial limousine, or I have to swallow a hurried meal and dash off to set right the wrongs of some witch-doctor." He accepted his tea and took two lumps of sugar. "This is more how it should be. It's nice."