“You are a determined young man and a foolish one,” Niklaas said. “What you plan is ridiculous, of course, and completely wrong.” He sat for a little while in silence, lost in thought.
“There’s nothing more to be said.” Cornish looked about for Susan and his eyes thanked her without betraying her with words. His silence made no difference, she knew. Her father was clearly aware of how this meeting had come about. She would have to face him on this score when Cornish had gone.
“Wait a moment, John,” Niklaas said. “Since you are both determined and stubborn, it will be necessary to change your mind. Will you come to stay in my house for a time? There are empty rooms—we can make you comfortable. Then you and I can speak at length of all these matters and cover them at our leisure. When you understand fully, you will change your course about this book.”
For an instant John Cornish seemed astonished. Then he accepted with eager alacrity. “Thank you, Oom Niklaas. It would be good to visit with you again, even if there were no book to discuss. You won’t change my mind, but I accept the invitation gratefully.”
“Good,” Niklaas said. “Pack up your things and come over at once. We’ll expect you tonight for dinner. There’s Thomas now—I know his step. May we give you a lift back to your hotel?”
Thomas had appeared and stood waiting at the foot of the monument.
“Thanks, no,” Cornish said. “I’ve a cab coming to pick me up. But I’ll be with you this evening, if you’ll have me. Tot siens.”
He gave Susan a smile that was less cool than usual and ran down the steps. At the bottom she saw him stop and speak to Thomas, as if he knew the colored man. A sudden recollection returned to her mind. On their first day in Cape Town someone had told Cornish where Dirk was making his home. Had it, she wondered, been Thomas? In which case, was he as wholly loyal to Niklaas van Pelt as her father believed?
“Mr. Cornish seems to know Thomas,” she said in a low voice.
“Of course,” her father said. “Thomas Scott’s parents worked for my family on their farm. John knew him as a boy.” The old man stood up and held out his hand to Susan. “Give me your arm, please. I’m not as sure on these steps as I used to be.”
He leaned upon the arm she crooked for him and they went down slowly. At the foot of the steps Thomas offered his own arm and they moved toward the grove of trees near which the car was parked. John’s cab had apparently come and gone.
“Do you think you can convince John Cornish?” Susan asked, when she and her father were settled in the car.
Niklaas sighed as if the encounter had wearied him. “I shall try. There will surely be a way.”
She was silent as the car turned toward home, expecting him to reproach her for precipitating this meeting, but he said nothing further, lost in his own thoughts.
She was not satisfied with his uncertainty. She had brought these two together for the purpose of preventing John Cornish from writing about her mother as he intended. But now it began to seem that it was Cornish who might convince her father. The thought was far from reassuring.
12
The day had been a disturbing one and she waited uneasily for Dirk to come home to dinner. She knew she must tell him about the drive to the Rhodes Memorial and of the meeting there with John Cornish. She would have to confess her own part in what had happened and the probability of his displeasure, coming on the heels of Mara’s hints and outrageous behavior, left her increasingly apprehensive. The calm counseling she had given herself during the past few days suddenly crumbled and left her without confidence or defense. Her mind could follow only one disturbing course.
Mara had been in love with Dirk. She had spoken of getting him back. She had said they would have married if Dirk had not left South Africa. If this was true, it would mean that Dirk had once been in love with Mara Bellman. And Mara would not be willing to allow whatever had been between them to remain in the past. Nor would she stop at anything to gain her ends. There was a promise of conflict in the days to come and Susan hated the thought. She wanted no game of combat with anyone, and least of all with Mara. More than anything else she longed for complete security in Dirk’s love for her. All her life she had been waiting for him. If she lost him now there would be nothing left to hold to, to believe in. The thought was devastating and she knew that she could rid herself of it only in the reassurance of Dirk’s arms, of Dirk’s love. And so there was impatience in her for his coming that evening.
When the telephone rang, and Willi came to tell her that Dirk was on the line, she hurried to take the call, feeling that she could not bear it if he did not come home to dinner tonight. It was now that she needed him. But he said merely that he would be delayed by a half hour or so and asked her to have Cookie hold the meal. She hung up the phone, both disappointed and relieved. At least the postponement would be a brief one.
After she had passed the word along to the kitchen she went outside. The sun was dipping behind the tawny head of the Lion and the softness of dusk lay over Cape Town. A walk before Dirk came home might quiet this feeling of urgency that would not allow her to sit down and wait.
Knowing the way now, she went easily over the wall and down the path. She would walk only as far as the pine grove and back. By that time Dirk would be at home and she could talk to him.
The sky was still partly light, with the night haze encroaching gradually from the east. Only the tall rocks and the pines in the ravine below were hidden in darkness. She walked briskly, meaning to turn back before she reached those black recesses. Not until she neared the half circle of monolithic rocks did she hear the sudden sound of voices from the direction of the grove beyond.
An uneasy awareness of the solitude of this spot came over her. There had been so much trouble of late in Cape Town that she had been warned not to go out alone in deserted places after dark. But it wasn’t truly dark yet, and this was so close to home that she had given no thought to the matter of her safety. Now she paused to listen and heard the voices cease, heard the sound of footsteps coming toward her up the path.
Swiftly she stepped around the base of one tall stone, and let the shadows take her. It was wiser not to meet whoever was coming up the path. When he had gone she would leave her hiding place and hurry back to the house. Tensely now, she leaned forward against the base of the stone to blend herself into its shadow, and felt its rough cold texture beneath her hands, against her cheek. It was to be hoped that she would stir up no snakes’ nest in this hidden place.
Footsteps went past her and she peered warily through a crevice of stone in time to see Dirk striding hurriedly uphill toward home. The fact in itself would not have surprised her. She knew there were times when he did not take the car and used the short cut of this path between the Aerie and Protea Hill. But tonight someone had been with him. She checked her first impulse to run after him, turning instead toward the grove. She had to know. She had to see for herself.
Careful to make no sound, she entered the darkness of the pines where the path turned and curved between the trees. Around the first turn Mara Bellman’s light-green suit was visible, her figure silhouetted against the paler dusk beyond the trees. Her face was in her hands and she was weeping soundlessly.
Unheard, unseen, Susan stole away, running now as she hurried toward home. In spite of this meeting she had nearly been witness to, she felt more relieved than disturbed. For the moment she had no pity for Mara’s tears. If the woman was crying, it was a good sign for Susan Hohenfield. One must be hurt for the other to be happy, and if it were Mara, then it would not be Susan. Her reasoning was primitive and direct.
Nevertheless, she did not want to meet Dirk before she was over the wall. She did not want him to know what she had seen. She slowed her steps a little, to give him time to go inside the house, meaning to steal into the garden before he knew of her absence.
But when the path turned upward to the wall, she saw that she was trapped. Dirk was in the garden, standing beside the wall, wat
ching the path up which he had so recently come. Perhaps he was merely composing himself before he went into the house. In any event, he saw her before there was time for retreat and waited for her in silence as she came up to the low place in the stone. She felt a little frightened as she put her toe in a crevice and pulled herself up and over. He made no move to help her, but stood motionless and silent until she was beside him in the garden.
“You should know better than to go out alone after dark,” he said. “There are always ruffians about ready for mischief.”
Perhaps he was hoping that she had seen nothing, but such evasion she could not accept. Her own sense of caution had suddenly vanished.
“Mara had to go home alone in the dark,” she said a little sharply.
Even as she spoke she knew the words were ill-chosen and impulsive. He stared at her for a long moment. Then he turned away without waiting for her further response. Following him slowly into the house, feeling shaken and sick, she heard him tell Willi that he would soon be ready for dinner.
The very thought of food was distasteful. She ran upstairs and into the bedroom. If she had not chosen her words so clumsily, he might have taken her into his arms and comforted her. Probably he would have made nothing of the meeting with Mara. He would have explained that whatever might have been between them was long in the past and that he loved only Susan. But she had antagonized him instead, and she could not blame him for turning away from her.
When Willi came to call her, she wanted no dinner. She had a headache, she said, and would lie down. Willi went softly away, and Susan slipped into a quilted robe and flung herself down on her bed. The tears came easily now and she did not try to stop them. The figure of Mara Bellman stood openly between herself and Dirk and she did not know how to fight a past that might imminently become the present.
She could see Mara now, not as a woman who had lost the man she loved, but as one who had never given him up. She could see her as Dirk must see her—beautiful and confident and poised. So many things that Susan was not. How important had Mara been to him? How important was she now? Over and over the same tormenting questions turned in her mind.
From the dining room downstairs she heard the sounds of a meal being served. In spite of herself, she followed them through each course to the end and then an aching hope began to rise in her. Perhaps he would come upstairs to her now that he had eaten. His anger would have abated. Surely he would recognize her hurt and come to comfort her.
But when the meal was done, she heard him go into the living room where they had their coffee after dinner. She heard Willi bring in the silver service and then return to the kitchen. Dirk was having his coffee alone, still remote, still angry.
She turned her cheek against the pillow and wept again, as miserably as a child. When someone tapped on the bedroom door, her heart gave a foolish, hopeful thump and she opened her eyes to see that it was only Willi. But the colored girl’s appearance was something to draw her from her mood of self-pity and despair, and she recognized the need to brace herself and make an effort toward outward recovery at least.
Willi came in carrying a tray that she set down on the bedside table.
“I’ve brought you some good tomato bredie,” she said. “Let me fix your pillow so that you can sit up and eat.”
The savory South African stew gave off an appetizing steam and Susan considered the girl who had brought it to her, wanting now to keep her here as a distraction against her own misery.
“Stay and talk to me, Willi,” she said.
“I’ll stay if you wish, Mrs. Hohenfield,” Willi agreed.
She plumped up Susan’s pillow, set the tray upon her knees, then stood beside the bed, waiting.
“Do sit down,” Susan said. “How can we talk if you stand up like that?”
A guarded look came into the girl’s face and she made no move toward a chair. Susan took a spoonful of the bredie and found it delicious. An impatience with her own weakness was beginning to hearten her.
“Listen to me,” she said, finding herself more impatient with South Africa than with Willi. “You’re a woman and I’m a woman. Please sit down and talk to me.”
Still a little wary, and with an instinctive distrust of someone who wore a white skin, Willi seated herself on the edge of a chair and waited.
“Why must you make a difference between us?” Susan asked.
“I am working for you in this house,” Willi said gravely. “It isn’t considered suitable—”
Susan broke in quickly. “I’ve never had anyone work for me before. I feel uncomfortable being a mistress. I’ve had no training at all in running a household.”
Willi’s dark lashes swept her cheeks and she said nothing.
Susan tried a new approach, tantalized by her inability to break down the girl’s careful guard, her mistrust. “My father told me today that you’re engaged to Thomas Scott.” She ate another spoonful of stew, watching her the while. “Are you planning to be married before long?”
This time Willi answered with an air of quiet reserve. “I am not engaged to Thomas. I don’t intend to marry him.”
There was a spark of reproof in her words and Susan found herself flushing. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you. This is my day for being clumsy.”
With an effort Willi attempted to overcome her own reserve. “I don’t mind your asking. Marriage for people like Thomas and me isn’t easy. We have to think of the future. What of our children? That frightens me. I don’t want the responsibility of bringing children into the world we know today in South Africa.”
Susan was silent, unable to offer any reassurance. She remembered John Cornish’s words at the Rhodes Memorial that afternoon and of his own wish to get away from the ugly promise of violence in South Africa. But people like this girl could not leave the country even if they wanted to.
“There is another thing,” Willi went on, as though something of Susan’s sincerity had reached her and she had begun to relax a little. “Thomas has a university education. And he is lighter-skinned than I am. There are doors open to him that might be closed to me. Why should I handicap him with a dark-skinned wife? You don’t know how hard it is to have a dark skin in South Africa.”
She was beginning to know, Susan thought. She was beginning to feel this thing strongly within the safety of her own white skin. In the face of Willi’s problem her own worries had receded a little. But at the sound of Dirk’s voice speaking suddenly from the open doorway, everything swept back in a returning sea of misery.
“May I come in?” he asked.
Willi sprang to her feet and Dirk spoke to her curtly in Afrikaans, in reproof and dismissal.
“Thank you, Willi, for bringing me the stew,” Susan said as the girl took the tray and went off.
“You mustn’t encourage her like that,” Dirk said. “You Americans spoil your servants. Part of the trouble we’re having in South Africa these days grows out of just such people as Willi and Thomas. Too much education, too much ambition, and nothing to do with it. It’s foolish to give it to them in the first place.”
She did not want to oppose him in some new way, yet she could not live with herself if she let his words pass.
“You can’t deny education to anyone who wants it,” she said hotly. “Or the opportunity to use it either.”
“No one wants to deny it to them.” Dirk was clearly impatient. “Let them have it in their own schools and their own way. That’s what apartheid is all about.”
Aparthate, Susan thought. That was the way it was pronounced and it could hardly have been a more graphic word. It hurt her deeply to see this attitude in Dirk, yet she knew that it was something he had grown up with, just as certain Americans grew up taking racial prejudice for granted. Eventually they must talk about these things, but this was not the time.
He came to sit beside her on the bed. “Let’s not quarrel about Willi. She’s a good girl in her way. But I don’t want to talk about her now.”
/> Susan made no move toward him. She felt miserably torn between love and indignation and hurt. He put out a hand and pushed back the bright hair from her forehead. “I do believe it’s beginning to grow a little,” he said. “You’re not snipping it off any more?”
She shook her head, sensing that he would come in his own way to the point if she gave him time.
“I wonder,” he went on, “whether you can understand if I try to tell you something? Sometimes you’re so capable and independent that you alarm me. And sometimes I wonder if I’ve married a child instead of a grown woman.”
Still she waited, her heart thumping raggedly.
“You mustn’t think I don’t understand how you feel about Mara,” he said. “I’d have preferred not to have you know. But since you’ve stumbled on something that you may build up out of its proper proportions, I think you must look at this realistically.”
“Look at what?” Susan asked in a low voice.
“At the way it was before you came into the picture. Mara is an attractive girl. We were both unattached. Why shouldn’t we console and amuse each other for the space of time that we were free? There was never any intention of marriage on my part. She knew I didn’t consider myself the marrying kind. Perhaps she hoped to change that. I suppose women always do. Perhaps she isn’t yet reconciled, though I didn’t expect her to mind as much as she apparently has. I wrote her from the States as soon as I knew we were going to be married. But I haven’t seen her alone more than once or twice since I’ve returned. When she asked me to meet her this evening I felt I owed her that—I couldn’t refuse.”
Susan leaned against her pillow and closed her eyes. The important thing was the fact that Dirk wanted to tell her all this, that he wanted everything in the open between them. She must accept the past realistically, as he wished. Nevertheless, there was a question she had to ask. She opened her eyes and looked at him.
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