In any event, it was impossible for her to give herself wholeheartedly to this affair when the aching soreness that had possessed her since that day on the mountain had never lessened for a moment. Dirk had not been unkind, but the breach between them had widened wordlessly. She knew he was blaming her for something she could not help. Memory would give her only so much and no more. There was no forcing it.
The matter of the destroyed film had gone unexplained. Dirk had not mentioned it again, nor had Susan. Indeed, it had begun to seem of little importance when set against the estrangement that had developed between herself and Dirk.
So Niklaas’s tea came at an inopportune time, and Susan’s heart was scarcely in it.
South Africans were a friendly people, and pleasant to know, but even the guests who came did not make it a complete success. It had been so long since Niklaas had entertained that there was a curiosity behind the polite façade of his visitors. And there was, as well, the usual undercurrent of uneasiness that so often presented itself in South Africa these days, so frequently possessed the conversation. Niklaas had many Afrikaner friends and their viewpoint was in political opposition to that of the English South Africans present.
One gray-haired English Capetonian spoke fervently to Susan on the subject. “I suppose you Americans are puzzled by what’s going on down here. The majority vote is out of English hands—our own fault, too, since we practically gave away our birthright. And there’s no way to save our necks down the beastly course we’re being driven. Afrikanerdom wears blinders.”
In opposition to this view, an old friend of her father’s told Susan indignantly that the outside world did not understand the purpose of the great experiment of apartheid and should mind its own business.
“We want only to help the black man,” he said with a fervor surpassing that of the Englishman. “When we separate the races completely, each can grow at his own pace and the black man will return to the tribal life that best suits him and govern himself as he wishes.”
John Cornish had paused beside Susan to listen. “I know—I’ve been in the Transkei. But the white man still calls the tune there and makes the rules.”
“We merely guide them wisely,” the other man said and turned away.
John shook his head despairingly. “There’s no ground on which we can get together. It’s an Alice-in-Wonderland world when it comes to logic. The only thing that’s sure is that everyone is badly scared and waiting for the next explosion. I hope I’ll get my book done before it comes.”
“How is it going?” Susan asked.
“Not very well. Your father manages to block me on all except obvious roads. We’re still talking and at least I’m getting a clearer picture of the past.”
Dirk joined them, nodding coolly to John, and after a few words the writer moved away, leaving Susan with her husband.
“How are you bearing up?” Dirk asked. “It’s an odd lot Uncle Niklaas has invited here today. Oil and water. The trouble is that your father hasn’t stirred himself to get out among people for so long that he doesn’t know how fierce the issues are.”
Someone spoke Dirk’s name nearby and before he moved to answer he murmured a few words under his breath for Susan alone. “When we get home, darling, remind me to tell you how pretty you look.”
His words surprised her and she tried to feel pleased and reassured, but everything had gone flat. She went over to where her father sat in an armchair, alone for a moment.
He spoke to her as she reached him. “Tell me about the gathering, Susan. Make me see it.”
“I’ll try,” she said. “But, first, how did you know it was I?”
“Your scent, of course,” he told her. “It’s light and flowery, yet not too sweet. I could pick it out anywhere. I noticed it the first day you came to visit me.”
“Appleblossom?” She must remember not to change, she thought to herself, touched that he had found this means of identifying her.
She took the liberty of painting the tea party in slightly more cheerful colors than were warranted as she told him about it. He listened attentively, but with a slightly disbelieving air.
“You describe everything with a photographer’s thoroughness,” he told her when she paused, “but I doubt if everything is going as smoothly as you say.”
It was clear that he was not so ignorant of what was happening as Dirk thought.
A woman came up to speak to him and she could not answer. Later, after she had gone into the hall with someone who was leaving, she returned to the dining room to stand hesitantly near the door, looking about for Dirk, half concealed by a great jar of flowers on the sideboard. These days she was often at a loss when he was with her, yet when she was away from him she wanted unreasonably to be at his side again. As she stood there the voices of two women, hidden by the flowers, reached her.
“My husband says there’s still a good bit of it going on, in spite of I.D.S.O., the security organization. There’s always a leakage out of Cape Town.”
The second woman’s words were lightly mocking. “Perhaps Niklaas van Pelt is up to his old tricks?”
“That’s unkind and unworthy of you,” the first one said sharply.
The second woman laughed and they moved off together to have their teacups filled.
Susan went quickly away to find an empty corner of the living room where she could stand looking out at the gray day. The surge of angry emotion that swept through her was surprising. She had not known that anything could stir her to such anger in connection with her father. For just an instant she had needed to keep a restraint upon herself, lest she spring indignantly to his defense. It would do no good to involve herself and make a scene.
When the party at last drew to a close and guests began to leave, her one reaction was of relief because an ordeal was over. After the last visitor had gone, Dirk came to tell her that a question had arisen concerning the new stock of silver jewelry and he must remain for a little while with her father. He would be at home for dinner, and in the meantime Thomas could drive her home. But Susan said the drizzle seemed to have let up, and she would enjoy the walk.
Dirk joined her father in his study, and she went into the hall to put on the mackintosh she had worn against the rain. As she was buttoning it up, the doorbell rang and the maid appeared to accept a package from a man at the door.
“Mr. van Pelt’s cigars,” the maid said. She put the package on the hall table beside the Chinese vase and went back to her work of cleaning up after the party.
Susan considered the box of cigars for a moment. Why not take them to the study herself? Dirk had bustled her off rather hurriedly and she’d had no satisfactory opportunity to thank her father or to say more than a perfunctory good-by. The words of gossip she had overheard still left a bitter taste and she had the feeling that some small gesture toward him might help to erase them.
She reached out to pick up the package, but somehow the table runner of Indian brocade caught beneath it as she lifted the box. The big Chinese vase filled with proteas tilted forward at an alarming angle. Seized by her old horror of breaking anything, Susan dropped the cigars and reached for the vase, catching it just as it tipped toward her. Water splashed over her hands and the box she had dropped struck the corner of the table, bounced off to the floor with a crash and broke open, scattering its contents about. She had saved the vase at the cost of the cigars, but the latter mattered less.
With hands that were shaking she set the vase upright and searched her purse for a handkerchief to dry her hands. Then she knelt to put the cigars back in the box. She knew this trembling over nothing was ridiculous. Nevertheless, she fumbled clumsily as she picked them up. One had broken free from its cellophane wrapping, strewing tobacco on the floor. She snatched up the broken cigar, gathered up the shreds of tobacco and thrust the lot into the pocket of her mackintosh as guiltily as though she had been a child trying to hide some wrongdoing. Now she would have to tell her father what had happened, she th
ought in unreasonable dread. Perhaps he would let her buy him another box …
She was suddenly aware that someone was watching her and she looked up to see that Thomas had stepped into the hall. He came to help her and she was murmuring to him apologetically about what had happened when Mara came down the stairs.
Mara saw at once what had happened. “Don’t trouble yourself,” she said to Susan, sounding impatient over such clumsiness. “Do run along. We can take care of this. Thomas, fetch a brush, will you? That is, if you’re sure, Mrs. Hohenfield, that you don’t want him to drive you home.” The spite in her eyes was barely veiled.
“No; it’s not raining. I’ll take the short cut,” Susan said hastily. “But if you don’t mind, I’ll tell Father what happened first. It was entirely my fault.”
“It’s not necessary, but do as you like,” Mara said curtly and began to rearrange the cigars in the box.
The moment Susan stepped into the study she knew she had interrupted some grave discussion her father was having with Dirk. Niklaas seemed a bit absent-minded as she explained about dropping the box of cigars, and Dirk looked distinctly displeased with her intrusion. She had half expected her father to reproach her for carelessness, as he used to do when she was a child, but he said merely that it did not matter, and dismissed her rather quickly.
When she returned to the hall Mara and Thomas were gone and so was the box of cigars. She let herself out the door and went through the dripping garden, feeling more disturbed and uneasy than ever. She had sensed some sort of cross-purpose between her father and Dirk and wondered what it was.
In the street she stood undecided for a moment. Overhead the sky looked threatening, as if it might pour at any minute. Should she go back and accept the offer of the car? But she did not want to return to the house. It would be better to chance the rain by way of the short cut and get home on foot.
The path was wet and muddy in spots, and she walked in the grass along the sides wherever possible. When she started the climb down into the ravine she moved more slowly than usual because of high heels, instead of walking shoes. The clouds overhead were scurrying before a wind that set the pine trees shivering and tugged the hood of her mackintosh back from her head. She had been letting her hair grow to please Dirk and she could feel the longer ends blow loose from their restraining pins.
On one hand the mountain stood black and wet, with silver falls of water down its face. The pine grove in the ravine was awhisper with raindrops falling from branches onto the brown, needle-strewn earth. Ahead, where the uphill climb toward home began, the tall rocks glistened like black marble, a little eerie in the gray light. The ravine was deserted, and it was foolish to be afraid of passing a mere huddle of rocks. Perhaps it was their shape that always vaguely disturbed her, as if they had been raised into position by some antique force that had left a malignant spell upon the place.
She thrust her hands deep into the pockets of the mackintosh, feeling the crumbled cigar beneath the fingers of her right hand. She had been foolish once today and once was enough. As she started up the hill toward the rocks she did not permit herself to hurry in the panic of her own imaginings.
There was no sound at all save the dripping of moisture from bushes and trees, and the movement of her own feet on the steepening path. The odor of wet pine was heavy on the moisture-laden air. She was safely past the rocks now and her fears had proved childish, as always. Soon she would be at the house and out of this cold wind. The crack of a twig on the path behind her sounded at the same instant that something struck her full in the back. She was flung forward to her knees, the breath knocked out of her, and something rough was thrust over her head and pulled down, smothering her cry, blinding her. A rude hand snatched the purse from her grasp and she heard the thud of someone running.
Kneeling on the wet stony path that bruised her knees, she fought the coarse sack from her face and struggled free of its stifling odor of earth and potatoes. When she had pulled it from her head she stumbled to her feet, the taste of earth in her mouth. For an instant she glanced back at the black, silent rocks, the dark cluster of pine trees and deepening shrubbery in the ravine. There was no one in sight. Nothing moved, no footfall thudded. Yet her assailant might be hiding there watching her. She turned and ran toward home as quickly as her high heels would take her.
Willi met her at the door and saw her disheveled hair and the mud on her mackintosh. Sensibly she asked no questions, but picked up Susan’s muddy shoes as she kicked them off.
“Someone was hiding in the ravine,” Susan said. “Someone snatched my purse. Willi, please call Mr. Hohenfield at my father’s and tell him what has happened. Ask him to come home right away.”
Willi went at once to telephone. Susan ran upstairs in her stocking feet and began to walk nervously about the bedroom, heedless of her wet mackintosh. She felt increasingly shaken by what had happened, even though it might have been worse. At least she had come out of the experience without serious physical injury.
There was a sore place in the center of her back where the push had come and her hands were scratched and bruised where she had fallen on them. She wished they would stop their trembling reaction and she thrust them into her pockets to steady them. Again her fingers found the broken cigar and she drew it out, aware of the not-unpleasant odor associated with her father, and dropped it into a wastebasket.
Her mind was still going over what had happened to her—the suddenness, the unexpectedness of the attack. Someone must have been waiting in the shadow of those rocks, though that usually empty path seemed an unlikely place to wait for a victim to rob.
She busied herself absently by taking off her coat and turning the pocket inside out to rid it of tobacco shreds. Several bits of a harder material fell out upon the carpet and she knelt to pick them up. Four or five tiny hard pellets lay upon her palm. They were dull in color—yellow, black, dark green. Bits of stone, they seemed to be, smaller than a pea. Her attention caught, she retrieved the cigar from the wastebasket and crumbled the tobacco over a piece of tissue. When the cigar had been reduced to powder, she had collected a number of the tiny stones. They lay inert in her hand. Inert and possessed of terrifying implications.
Hearing Willi on the stairs, she wrapped the tissue quickly about her find and put it back in her mackintosh pocket. Willi reported that Mr. Hohenfield would be here at once, and remained in the doorway, her eyes questioning.
“I’ll be all right,” Susan assured her. “I was pushed down on the path with sacking over my head, but I wasn’t really hurt.”
When the girl had gone, Susan looked quickly about the room for a suitable hiding place. Then she tucked the packet of crumbled tobacco and tiny stones into the toe of a shoe in the armoire and set a shoe tree in against it. The cigars had been sent to her father and the knowledge left her alarmed. She did not want to tell Dirk or anyone else of her discovery until she had time to think about it.
Dirk came home a few moments later. He made her go over her story several times, explaining exactly what had happened. Then he phoned for the police. He was clearly concerned and did not remind her that he had advised against her use of the ravine path.
When the police came there was further questioning, though she could be of no help in identifying the person who had made the attack. The Afrikaner officer shook his head in grim disapproval over her walking about at dusk in the lonely ravine.
A search was made of the path she had followed and the potato bag was found, as well as her discarded purse, with the money missing. Sacking of the sort used might come from anywhere, and there were no other clues to be discovered. The path was used just enough so that there were footprints in muddy places of the few who had followed it. On the other hand, a man running in the grass along the side might leave hardly a trace of his passing. The officer concluded that it had been the act of some “Kaffir” who was interested only in the money she carried. She was fortunate not to have been seriously injured. Let this be a less
on to her.
Susan thought of the crumbled tobacco tucked away in the toe of a shoe in her wardrobe and said nothing. She could only hope there was no connection. No casual assailant could have known she had the cigar.
When the police had gone and the long-delayed dinner was served, she found it difficult to eat. The shock of what had happened had worn off a little, but she could not relax. The thought of those tiny significant pellets hidden away upstairs haunted her. She did not want to talk to Dirk about them. It was her father she must go to first. Tonight—immediately. But when she suggested seeing her father right after dinner, on the thin excuse of telling him what had happened to her, Dirk would not hear of her leaving the house.
He was gentler than he had been in a long while, but he was firm about the fact that she was to go up to bed right after dinner.
“There’s a delayed reaction about this sort of thing,” he warned. “I’ve already phoned the doctor to come in this evening and have a look at you.”
Frustration made her all the more nervous but, though she fretted over Dirk’s ministrations, there was nothing to do but give in.
When he had tucked the covers around her and gone downstairs, she lay awake with sleep the farthest thing from her mind. She could think only of the cigar and the tiny stones that had been hidden in it. Though she had never seen anything like them before, she could not doubt their importance. She knew very well what they must be. And her first hope that there had been no connection between what had happened to her on the path and her possession of that cigar was growing dimmer as she examined the possibilities.
Someone at Protea Hill was involved. Someone who knew she had dropped the box of cigars and broken it open, someone who suspected that she might have picked up a cigar from the contents and put it in her purse. There were just four people who knew what had happened, and there would have been time for one of them to cut ahead of her down the path and lie in waiting.
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