Blue Fire

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  Others from their flight stood about talking, or merely waiting, and Susan noted the smartness of South African women. They wore the furs and expensive suits and spiked heels of New York or London or Paris. Looking at them one felt merely a sense of recognition. Common fashions had a way of pulling the world together. One might trade hemispheres and seasons these days with scarcely a sense of the scene having changed. Only something inside her rushed and rushed, trying to catch up.

  She had forgotten their fellow passenger until she saw John Cornish standing by the enclosure fence not far away. She recognized him at once from the photograph she had seen. Dirk saw him too and quickly turned his back toward the other man.

  “He may try to speak if he sees me,” Dirk said. “I’d rather avoid him. If he should come over and I have to introduce you, I shan’t mention that you’re Niklaas’s daughter. Let’s not get his journalist’s nose pointed in our direction any more than it is.”

  Susan nodded her agreement, but she still felt puzzled. She saw Cornish leave the fence for a turn about the enclosure, saw him start past them, then glimpse at Dirk’s averted head and stop.

  “He’s seen you,” she murmured to Dirk and sensed the stiffening that went through him.

  As the writer approached, she looked at him with frank curiosity and saw that he was to a great extent like his picture. There was a touch of gray in his dark hair and a craggy look to his brows and nose and well-defined chin. There was the same somber, relentless cast to his face that the picture had revealed, and even though he smiled as he held out his hand to Dirk, his expression did not light to true friendliness.

  “What luck,” he said. “I’ve been hoping to run into you again.”

  Dirk’s hesitation was momentary before he took the other man’s hand, but Susan suspected that Cornish was quite aware of his reluctance. He turned a look of surprise upon her as Dirk introduced her as his wife.

  “You’ve married an American girl,” he said. “My congratulations, Hohenfield.”

  He held out his hand to Susan and she was aware of the substance of his fingers as he took her own. They were lean and hard and there was a hint of wiry strength in their pressure. She remembered that this man had been a commando in the war and the knowledge was not reassuring.

  “What luck to run into you,” he said again to Dirk. “I’ve been hoping to see you. The letters I’ve written Niklaas van Pelt haven’t been answered. I’ve done all I can with my book in Pretoria and Johannesburg. I’m going to Cape Town now and see if I can persuade van Pelt to see me. Will you intercede for me, Hohenfield?”

  Dirk’s shrug was casual as if he were close to the edge of being rude. “As you know, Uncle Niklaas makes his own rules. If he has determined not to see you, then I expect that is the end of it.”

  “It’s not the end of it as far as I’m concerned,” the other man said coolly. “If you’re unwilling to give me your help, then I must do without it.”

  “Exactly,” Dirk said.

  The moment was sharp with antagonism on Dirk’s part, though this fact seemed to slide off John Cornish as if he were totally indifferent to discouragement. Susan had the dismayed feeling that Dirk was quite capable of causing a scene if he lost his temper, and she spoke hurriedly to stave off a possible explosion.

  “What sort of book are you writing this time, Mr. Cornish?” she asked with a little rush of false enthusiasm she did not intend.

  His attention was clearly focused upon Dirk and there was the alertness in him of a man who could think and move quickly if he had to.

  He answered without looking at her, almost absently. “It’s a book about diamonds and South Africa.”

  “Another one?” Dirk’s blond brows rose derisively. “Isn’t there a surplus of books about diamonds already? Books on everything from the history of De Beers to diamond smuggling!”

  John Cornish answered impassively, and there was something a little frightening about his refusal to take offense or yield his stand. This was a man who would make an implacable and dangerous enemy, Susan thought.

  “It’s possible that I have a different approach,” he said. There was a pause, as if some crackling significance hung in the air between them. Then he turned to Susan with an air of having answered Dirk and dismissed him. “Kimberly is the right place for this talk of diamonds. You must come back another time and see something of the mines.”

  “I’d hate to go down into a mine,” Susan said quickly, wanting to oppose this man because Dirk opposed him.

  “Mines are only the beginning of the story,” Cornish said. “The real excitement lies well aboveground. I suppose it’s a truism to point out that diamonds are harmless enough in themselves. It’s what men do with them that breeds the trouble. And that’s what my book will be about.”

  A loudspeaker called them back to the plane, and Dirk took Susan’s elbow, turning her away from John Cornish. But the other man came with them, walking along toward the plane as if he sensed no lack of welcome. Susan was aware of his slight limp, though he kept pace with them easily.

  “I shall hope to see you in Cape Town,” he said in the tone of a man who expected to be asked to tea.

  Dirk made no answer and Susan walked uneasily between the two. This interchange had seemed to threaten her father in some way and she sensed that Dirk was resisting the other man’s fixed purpose with an inward anger and stubbornness of his own. But none of this made sense to her and in any event it was not her affair. As long as possible she meant to avoid seeing Niklaas van Pelt. And in all likelihood she would never meet John Cornish again. It was ironic that she who so longed to avoid Niklaas should be confronted by a man whose only purpose seemed to be to force a meeting with her father.

  When they were once more airborne, Susan gave herself over to the wifely duty of soothing Dirk’s irritation.

  “I don’t blame you for disliking that man,” she said. “The very fact that he would choose to be a commando makes me feel uncomfortable about him.”

  Dirk did not take to such soothing. “Why should you feel uncomfortable? It requires courage to make a commando. Some of the first commandos were ancestors of mine—on my Afrikaner mother’s side.”

  When she glanced at him blankly, he went on.

  “That’s where the word comes from. The men who went along with the voortrekkers as fighting men, as guards, were called commandos. It was a designation of bravery and honor.”

  “You sound as though you were defending John Cornish,” Susan said in bewilderment.

  “I’m defending him only on the score of an unreasonable feminine attack,” Dirk said. “I have no use for him and I mean to keep him away from your father. But not, my darling—” he gave her a quick, exasperated look “—not because he was briefly a commando in the war.”

  Susan lapsed into hurt silence, convinced for a moment that men were given to being unreasonable, ungrateful and unfair. But when the numerous dinner courses began to be served she recovered in spite of herself, and Dirk seemed to regret his sharpness.

  “We’re both tired after a long trip,” he said penitently. “John Cornish isn’t worth quarreling over.”

  One of the likable things about Dirk was his regret when he had hurt her and the eagerness with which he made up for any momentary loss of temper. She knew that he was volatile and high-strung; indeed these very qualities were part of the attraction he held for her, part of a personality that would never be stodgy and dull. She must learn to wait for the gentler mood, the contrition that would always come if she gave him time.

  She quickly regained a happier state as Dirk began to describe the dark invisible land over which they were flying. They were above the tawny veld that bloomed so briefly in spring with a vast carpet of wildflowers. The veld with those unexpected hills that from the plane looked like no more than small bubbles thrust up from the landscape. He complimented her on remembering that “veld” was pronounced “felt” in the proper Afrikaans way.

  He told her
of the mountains that rose where the land descended from the high central plateau of Africa to a lower plateau—like giant steps descending to the sea. And at last of the jagged peaks that guarded the Cape Peninsula and the final downward drop to the level of the Atlantic.

  Now there were lights to be seen below—the clustered lights of towns—and all through the plane passengers began to stir and take down their parcels, put on their coats.

  “Someone may meet us,” Dirk said. “I wired your father the plane we would take.”

  Susan glanced at him in surprise. They were coming down now, descending in a gentle slant.

  “Do you mean that my father might come to the airport?” she asked, disturbed at the thought. “You should have warned me. I—I’m not ready—”

  “I doubt that Niklaas himself will come,” Dirk said, and there seemed a sudden tension in him that she did not understand. He reached for her hand where it lay on the seat arm between them. “Susan dear—” he began and then broke off.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked in dismay. “I mean about my father? Something you haven’t told me?”

  His fingers tightened upon her hand. “Darling, will you trust me? Just trust me, that’s all. As long as you’re with me, we’ll work things out, I promise you.”

  Lights were rushing toward them and in a moment the runway markers were flying past and the plane’s wheels had touched the concrete with a faint jar.

  Susan could feel the thudding of her heart as the plane rolled to a stop and she got into line in the aisle to move with Dirk toward the exit. This was not really Cape Town yet, she reminded herself. Malan Airport was at a distance from the city and not even the mountain could be seen through the darkness. The moment of recognition could not come until morning and she would be better prepared for it then.

  They did not see John Cornish among the passengers as they went through the barrier gates and into the broad main hall of the handsome building. Dirk moved toward the luggage pickup without so much as a glance about to see if anyone had come to meet them. Susan went with him, keeping close to his side, feeling that she was truly in a strange land now. The tension she had noted in the plane was still upon Dirk, and an impatience too, as if he were braced for something which might prove to be an ordeal and which he resented having to face.

  As he pointed out their bags and was handing over the checks, Susan saw a man and a woman approaching the luggage counter. The woman had seen Dirk and she walked with a purposeful step that carried her directly toward him. She was young, less than thirty perhaps, and strikingly attractive, with a complexion that was clear and glowing. Bareheaded, she wore her heavy fair hair coiled in a loose knot at the nape of her neck. A smartly styled tan coat hung carelessly from her shoulders and her slender feet were encased in high-heeled brown pumps. Susan’s eye for pictorial detail registered her as remarkably photogenic.

  Just behind followed a light-skinned colored man in a chauffeur’s uniform. A man who was possibly about Dirk’s age. Again her quick eye noted detail—the fact that he was fine looking and carried himself well. Yet she had seldom seen a face so carefully devoid of feeling, so guarded in expression.

  Susan touched Dirk’s arm and he turned and saw the two as they reached him. The air of defensive waiting was still upon him, but he made an effort to appear friendly.

  “Mara!” he exclaimed. “I wondered if you would come. This is my wife, Susan. Miss Bellman. Good evening, Thomas. Will you help us with the bags?”

  The colored man answered his greeting with a touch of finger to cap and stepped up to the counter to reach for the bags Dirk indicated. Mara Bellman smiled brightly at Dirk.

  “Congratulations and all that sort of thing,” she said, and turned her violet gaze upon Susan. “Welcome to Cape Town. I’m your father’s secretary and general assistant. I’ll have to confess that Dirk’s marriage has taken us a bit by—surprise.”

  Susan tried to return her smile, but her lips felt stiff. “I suppose it has taken us by surprise too,” she admitted.

  She wanted to ask about her father’s reaction to their marriage, but a restraint lay upon them all, something unspoken but real, and she said nothing.

  “Let’s get along to the car,” Dirk said. “We’re both fagged and this is no place to talk.”

  Thomas picked up the bags and started toward the doors. They followed him into the cool night air, walking briskly toward the car. But now, having dismissed her father in her own mind, Susan slipped a hand through the crook of Dirk’s elbow, drawing him back.

  “Tell me,” she whispered, “which way is Cape Town?”

  He understood and his impatience faded. “It’s that way. To our right. You can see the lights. By daylight you could see the mountain from here. But that will have to wait until morning. At least there’s the Southern Cross. Do you remember it?”

  He pointed and she looked up at the dark, star-tossed sky, her eyes searching eagerly until she found the constellation—like a small kite in the heavens. Not particularly impressive, yet capable of rousing in her a choked sense of emotion. She could recall a dark night away from the lights of the city, and someone showing a little girl the Southern Cross for the first time. Had it been her father?

  The old, unappeased longing, the nostalgia, was upon her again—for what she could not tell. Dirk felt her shiver and slipped an arm about her.

  “Come along, darling,” he whispered.

  She went with him toward the car. The sense of space rushing dizzily away had ceased. She was here and Cape Town was waiting for her.

  It has to go well, she told herself. We must make it go well. But the uneasiness would not leave her.

  3

  During the drive Mara made an attempt at light conversation, though Dirk helped very little, lost again in his own thoughts. Her accent was wholly South African, Susan noted, with much of the English in it, yet with a slurring of syllables that she remembered from the past.

  Dirk broke into the middle of Mara’s words as if he had not noticed that she was speaking.

  “What did Uncle Niklaas have to say about our news?” he asked.

  Mara was quiet for a moment. Then she began again, as if summoning up her bright, animated tones. “He hasn’t talked about it, actually. But at least he has been making preparations and giving orders madly. For tonight you are to be taken directly to the hotel. You’re to come to see him late tomorrow morning, Dirk. That will give you time to move out of the hotel and into the Aerie before you come to his place.”

  “The Aerie?” Dirk sounded surprised.

  The movement of Mara’s blond head in assent was graceful, but there was a hint of spite in her voice. “He thought you would want to be by yourselves. And the Aerie is vacant. Not too far away either. It should be convenient.”

  “At seventy-odd,” Dirk said to Susan, “your father has lost none of his tendency to highhanded action. But at least this will spare us the need to do any house hunting immediately.”

  “What is the Aerie?” Susan asked.

  “It’s a smaller house your father owns,” Dirk said, “and not as pretentious as it sounds. Sometimes he houses visiting buyers there. One of the things you’ll have to get used to in Cape Town is the way we name our houses, instead of giving them numbers. If a stranger wants to find a house, all he can do is ring bells along the street until he locates it. This house is furnished and in good repair—I had a look at it myself not long ago.”

  “We’ve added a few touches to make you more comfortable,” Mara told him, still brightly vivacious. “We moved down some extra furniture from Protea Hill and we’ve fixed up a little office with your desk in it, Dirk. And your clothes have been sent down, of course. The servants won’t be there till tomorrow, which is why you can’t move in tonight.”

  “You have been busy,” Dirk said, his tone dry. He turned to Susan. “We’re following Rhodes Drive. The road curves around Devil’s Peak just above us on our left. The mists have started down, so you
can’t see the peak tonight.”

  She knew her directions now. The unseen mountains curved like a broken amphitheater, she remembered, with Devil’s Peak and the Lion’s Head making the two opposite wings and reaching down toward Table Bay. Though the sky was still starry, clouds blanked out the peaks and to her disappointment she could not see Table Mountain itself—the mountain of her memory. Nevertheless, she knew it stretched hugely between the two wings, forming backdrop and stage. Cape Town itself filled the spectators’ seats and spread around the Lion’s Head to the suburbs on the sea. Cape Town tonight was a panorama of brilliance fanned out below the drive, extending to the far rim of lights that edged the bay.

  It was beautiful, but it did not speak to her. She must still wait until tomorrow for a glimpse of the mountain. Only then could she know she had come home.

  The car, a right-hand drive, had been following the left side of the road in the British manner. Now it turned left through tall Grecian columns that marked the impressive entrance to the hotel. It climbed the curving drive past centered palm trees and came to a halt before the front door. They were close beneath the mountain now, but the mist had thickened, reaching down the lower slopes, and there was nothing to be seen except the bright pink hotel façade looming among the palm trees.

  Mara came into the lobby with them and stepped efficiently to the desk to make sure that all was in order with their reservation. When Dirk was signing the register, Susan walked a little way into the lounge to look about.

  This was the after-dinner hour and men and women of varied ages, the women well cloaked against the chill in mink stoles, were enjoying coffee at small tables scattered through the long, high-ceilinged room. The well-bred atmosphere of an English novel prevailed, except that these people seemed more sensitive to the cold than any true Englishman would have been.

  Once assured that all was well, Mara bade Dirk and Susan a somewhat hurried good night and returned to the car. A boy took them upstairs in the small lift. Their room had a surprisingly cozy air about it, and less of the impersonal quality of most hotel rooms. After the chilly halls, the warm glow of an electric heater made them welcome.