`Hullo, Todd,' Nicola said indifferently. 'I didn't know your farm was in the Soutpansberg until Mr Sorensen told me last night.'
`She's here to paint Uncle Traugott,' Melanie added.
`How nice that you know each other,' Mrs Graeme said delightedly.
Denise glanced meaningly at Todd and nodded slightly in her. mother's direction. 'Yes, Todd, you ought to have told me you knew Nicola Prenn. You know how much I admire her father.'
Todd looked at her sharply and apparently grasped the situation, because he smiled and said easily, 'Oh, I've known Robert Prenn for some time now, and I've met Nicola occasionally when I've been visiting him in Johannesburg.'
'And you never told us,' Denise said reproachfully. `How selfish of you, Todd!' She turned to Nicola. `I've got a picture of your father's in my bedroom—a view of Cathkin Peak in the Drakensberg. Barak gave it to me for my last birthday. Wouldn't you like to see it? I love it. Do come.'
Nicola took the hint. Denise wanted to talk to her out of Mrs Graeme's presence. She excused herself and followed the tall slim girl from the room.
`What on earth is going on?' Denise demanded in her breathless young voice, once they were out of earshot. 'I had no idea you were Nicola Prenn when I met you the other night.'
`I had no idea that the man you were with would turn out to be Barak Sorensen with whom my father made arrangements for me to paint Traugott,' Nicola
retorted as she was ushered into a small but smart bedroom. The view of Cathkin Peak was the first thing she noticed on entering. The boldly executed painting was too large for such a small room, and shouldn't have been hidden away in a bedroom in any case, she thought. If she had owned it, she would have hung it somewhere public so that its majesty could be shared.
`But what's the position?' Denise Graeme asked, lowering herself on to the bed in a gracefully liquid movement. 'I don't want my parents to know what occurred last week.'
`If they find out, it won't be from me,' Nicola promised the girl. Those two middle-aged people didn't deserve to suffer any more worry than they already had.
`And Barak?' Denise persisted. 'You haven't told him what really happened, have you?'
`Of course not,' Nicola replied impatiently. 'I don't want to cause trouble for you.'
`Thanks,' Denise said casually. 'Silence is our policy, then. I'm grateful to you, Nicola. I don't want any trouble to come between Barak and me. What I did on New Year's Eve was in the nature of showing my hand. I wanted to spur him into action. Unfortunately things got a bit out of hand with regard to Todd.'
`I see,' Nicola answered, for want of anything better to say. She glanced at Denise's hands. Apart from the huge tiger's eye ring on the right hand, her fingers were innocent of jewellery. Presumably the engagement was still unofficial, then, but very much taken for granted. What action was required of Barak? A definite proposal? Or was Denise trying to make him see her as an individual, rather than Vanessa's young sister? She
ought to be satisfied. He had gone chasing after her all the way to Johannesburg, deserting his family on New Year's Eve.
Denise looked at her speculatively. `Your appearance is so different from what it was the other night. Did Barak recognise you?'
Nicola nodded. `He was so wholeheartedly convinced by the position in which you found Todd and me on that veranda that I'm now under the black cloud of .his disapproval.'
`Poor you,' Denise gurgled. `I can imagine ! It's not that he's narrow minded about such things. He hasn't remained celibate by any means in reaching the age of thirty-seven, but he's always felt sorry for Hilary Baxter, and of course, he can't stand Todd.'
`Yet Todd is a visitor to your house?'
Denise shrugged. `Todd can be fun. I'll lose my freedom soon enough, when I marry Barak.'
Nicola frowned slightly. Things weren't as they should be, and she couldn't resist meddling. She said tentatively, `If you look on it that way, why rush into marriage? You're only eighteen.'
`I might lose him if I ask him to wait,' said Denise, her slim hands smoothing the skirt of her dress.
How terrible, not to be sure of your man, Nicola thought. `He's so very much older than you,' she commented thoughtfully.
`Oh, the age gap in itself is of little account,' Denise dismissed it easily. 'After all, he has the marriage of Ellen and Traugott for encouragement. Ellen is fifteen years younger than her husband, and look how successful their marriage has been. But Barak's age on its
own ... he wants a son, I suppose, and not too late in life. He's an impatient man, so I can't risk asking for a few years' freedom.'
If he loved her, he might wait, Nicola thought, although Barak Sorensen was the sort of man to get his own way. But if it was merely the old, much-mocked male need to perpetuate himself ... then yes, she could imagine that in asking for time, Denise would lose him altogether, and some other woman would be chosen to produce his heir. But wasn't it the memory of Vanessa that made him want Denise?
`How well do you know Todd?' Denise asked abruptly.
`As he said, we've met a few times at my father's house,' said Nicola. 'I can hardly claim to know him well. There was our meeting on -New Year's Eve ... but even under those circumstances, we parted immediately after you and Mr Sorensen had gone.'
`I see,' Denise said thoughtfully. 'Funny the way things work out ... when we were returning from Johannesburg, Barak told me he had talked to Robert Prenn on first arriving at the party, and that they had arranged for his daughter to come up and paint Traugott. Imagine it turning out to be you!'
`Imagine,' Nicola repeated drily. 'Hadn't we better be getting back to the others? They'll be wondering why I'm taking so long to look at my father's picture.'
Denise stood up elegantly. 'It's fantastic, isn't it? Yes, I suppose we'd better go ... We've agreed on silence then, have we?'
`Certainly,' Nicola assured her curtly. She took a last look at the lowering, potentially explosive gloom of the
mountain Robert Prenn had painted on some bleak evening, and wondered what the man, whose honesty spoke through his work, would say to the intricacies of deception in which she had involved herself.
They returned to the lounge, to find Melanie desirous of leaving. 'We have to be back for lunch, and after that I'm going shopping in Louis Trichardt,' the little girl explained.
`We'd better go, then,' Nicola agreed.
`I must be off too,' said Todd. 'I came over on foot, but you can give me a lift, can't you, Nicola? It's on your way.'
It was the last thing she wanted to do, finding him such distasteful company, but with Mrs Graeme looking on, she was forced to acquiesce.
`Then I'll have to sit in the back,' Melanie said sourly.
They said goodbye to Mrs Graeme and her daughter, and Nicola started the car, with Todd beside her and Melanie on the back seat.
`What do you think of this backwater I've had to make my home?' Todd asked when, they were on their way.
`I'm enchanted,' Nicola said shortly. He hadn't had to make it his home. It was only because Hilary Baxter had been a wealthy woman that he had obliged himself to live here, and even so, his trips to Johannesburg were frequent.
They didn't talk much on the journey and presently they approached a gate. Todd indicated that it led to his wife's farm and Nicola stopped the car.
`Goodbye, Todd,' she said.
`Get out, Nicola,' he told her quietly.
`Why?'
He glanced significantly at Melanie, who stared back at him stonily. 'There are things to be said.'
Reluctantly Nicola got out of the Volkswagen and they stood next to the gate.
`I take it that Denise's mother is to remain in ignorance of the happenings on New Year's Eve?'
`That's right,' Nicola said irritably. She was tired of feeling herself to be in a web, and above all, she was tired of Todd Baxter.
`And Sorensen?'
`Well, obviously he must remain under the impression that he gained, then,' she said
sarcastically. 'It was for his benefit, wasn't it?'
`And Denise's,' Todd said with a grin. 'Do we reinforce that impression?'
`Definitely not,' said Nicola, aware of Melanie's incurious stare. The child had climbed into the front seat.
`Why not?' Todd drawled. 'You won't be spending all your time on painting that autocratic old man, will you? It's wonderful having you in the Soutpansberg. We could have a good time together, Nicola.'
`Have your good times with Denise,' she retorted rudely. Then, 'Haven't you any respect for her near-engagement ... or for your own marriage?'
His smile was unrepentant. 'Life is for living, Nicola darling. Denise is a nice little girl and if she wants to use me to help bring Barak Sorensen up to scratch, then I'm not objecting. She's very attractive.'
`I feel sorry for her,' Nicola snapped, turning back
towards the car. 'One man is trying to make her a substitute for her dead sister; the other is merely amusing himself at her expense. She'll probably end up with a severe complex.'
Todd caught at her hands, arresting her progress. He laughed. 'Not Denise. You don't know her very well, Nicola. She knows exactly where she stands with both Sorensen and me, and the light in which we regard her, and she's not unsatisfied. The situation suits her.'
`If she's satisfied, then why is she anxious about marrying Barak Sorensen?' Nicola argued. 'Please let go of my hands, Todd. Melanie and I have to get back to the farm.'
'Not yet,' he said, as a gleaming station-wagon went past, travelling in the direction of Louis Trichardt. `When can I see you again?'
`Never, I hope,' Nicola said bluntly. She succeeded in snatching her hands away from him and returned to the car. 'Sorry about that,' she apologised to Melanie.
'That was Uncle Barak who went past,' Melanie informed her.
Nicola closed her eyes as she slammed the door. Damn! Had he seen them? Oh, drat Todd Baxter! No one else had ever caused her so much embarrassment.
`Don't you like Mr Baxter?' Melanie asked.
'No,' said Nicola, too annoyed to put a guard on her tongue.
`Why were you holding his hands, then?'
`I wasn't—he was holding mine. There's a difference.'
`Oh.' Melanie thought about it for a while. 'Yes, I see,' she said finally, sounding satisfied.
Nicola had managed to calm down by the time they reached the farm and sat down to lunch with Ellen and Traugott.
`Barak had to go into Louis Trichardt,' Ellen explained. 'Perhaps he passed you when you were on your way home from the Graemes'?'
Melanie said, 'Yes; he waved to me.'
Nicola looked at the child curiously. There had been no mention of what the circumstances had been at the time of Barak's passing them. Melanie's grey eyes, as they met hers, were limpid and guileless, so that Nicola's cheeks turned pink. Melanie would regard it as being Nicola's prerogative to explain what had been happening, and in her silence, Nicola set an example of passive deception.
Yet wasn't the child herself engaging in the same thing? Another child might have qualified Melanie's brief statement by describing the place and the action, giving little thought to whether silence might not be more tactful.
After the meal, when Ellen and Melanie had set off for Louis Trichardt, Nicola decided to make the most of the ring of entrancing views surrounding the elegant farmhouse. She was not to work on the portrait in the afternoons, and Traugott had wandered out of the house after lunch was over—in order, he explained, to examine the strawberry patch which was one of the great interests of his retirement.
She would start painting the mountain behind the house, paint it warmed by the sun. It was a rugged
enough feature of the land for her taste, while escaping the towering, almost oppressive grandeur of the Drakensberg her father loved to paint and she could not, because she lacked a greatness in her art which Robert possessed, so that for him, nothing was too big to be the subject of his talent, nothing too ambitious. But this roughly hewn mountain rising above the house was for her ... she would avoid the claustrophobia engendered by the Drakensberg, such a mass of land, but all rising upwards instead of spreading outwards.
As always Nicola worked vigorously, driven by the sense of urgency which came when there was a canvas to be filled and a view before her. She was working from the lawn between the house and the gum-trees, unconscious of the living sounds about her, so that she was startled when a shadow fell over her shoulder, and her hand wavered in executing what ought to have been a firm stroke of brown.
She turned her head sharply to confront the unamused grey eyes which regarded her. Nicola was immediately conscious of her untidy appearance. She had changed into the pair of jeans which had been her standard wear when she had been at art school, and her loose top had once been an attractive shade of green, but long hours spent working in the sun had faded it and her paint brushes had been applied more than once to its front. Her shining hair was caught back at the nape of her neck, but straggling wisps had escaped, making her look much younger than her twenty-three years.
`You gave me a fright,' she said accusingly.
`I beg your pardon,' said Barak Sorensen. He glanced
casually at what she had painted so far. 'Does this take priority over Todd Baxter?'
`I told you that he meant nothing to me now,' said Nicola, not quite capable of commanding the defiance of tone she had deemed suitable to the remark. She thought she knew what was coming.
`Yes?' The one sardonic word called her a liar. 'So you did. I had hoped, for Hilary's sake, that it was true.'
`And you know that it wasn't?'
`We appear to understand each other,' he said coldly. `I wondered if you had noticed me, and thought perhaps that only Melanie had done so. Miss Prenn, I have no wish whatsoever to interfere in an affair that doesn't concern me, but when I think of my niece being forced to witness ... In future, if you make an assignation with Baxter, please be good enough to arrange it for a time when Melanie is not present.'
`Yes, sir,' she murmured, not intending him to hear, but he did.
`You find a child's involvement amusing?'
`Certainly not. But she wasn't involved. What happened this morning was unavoidable.'
`Nothing is unavoidable,' Barak stated in a controlled voice which belied the anger she sensed in him.
`To gods perhaps ... but not to mere mortals,' Nicola retorted. 'What are you so worried about? I won't be here long enough to influence Melanie in any way. You need have no fear of her morals being exposed to my corruptive example.'
`Who said anything about morality? It's a question of people's feelings. Melanie might quite easily let
Hilary Baxter know that you and her husband are having an affair.'
`Todd and I are not having an affair,' Nicola stated quietly. 'But is it wise for Mrs Baxter to remain in ignorance of the sort of life Todd is leading? The longer illusions are fostered, the more painful the awakening will be.'
`I doubt if Mrs Baxter has any illusions about her husband,' Barak said cynically. 'I should think she knows him better than anyone else. But she does have a modicum of pride, and that's what I'm thinking of. A child won't be concerned about who is present—she'll just speak out in any company.'
`Not Melanie,' Nicola said with a short laugh. 'She's a very old little person. She could have mentioned ... what .you saw to Mrs Sorsensen at lunch today, when she asked if we had seen you go past, but she kept her counsel.'
`Had you asked her to? I won't have the child trained in deception.'
`You misjudge me, Mr Sorensen. I've no idea of Melanie's motives, but her silence on the subject was not the result of any prompting from me.' Nicola sighed and added with her customary honesty, 'It made me feel guilty.'
His eyes were speculative as they searched her face. `Is that true?'
`Why shouldn't it be?'
`You haven't given me any reason to think of you as a truthful person, have you?' he said. 'You told me last n
ight that your affair with Baxter was a thing of the past, but today I drive past the pair of you holding
hands at the gate of Hilary's farm. What if she had driven out on her way to town? Didn't you think of that?'
`You said she had no illusions about Todd,' Nicola retaliated in a flat tired voice. She stared miserably at the buttons of the soft blue shirt he was wearing.
Oh, if only she could make him believe that her mythical affair with Todd was finished ! That there had been an affair, existing still on New Year's Eve, he must continue to believe, because she had made a promise to Denise Graeme. But to continue to live a lie, a lie forced on her ... it was unthinkable. She couldn't have this man thinking that she was still engaged in an affair with Todd Baxter ... in Hilary Baxter's home territory. Oh, not because she cared what Barak's opinion of her might be, Nicola assured herself, but because ... the deceit in which she had involved herself was intolerable to her.
So she said, 'I told you the truth last night. What you saw this morning ... well, haven't you heard of lingering and painful deaths?' She managed a rueful smile.
`That isn't the way it happens,' Barak said harshly. `The way you talk ... I think you know very little about love, Nicola.'
`Oh, love, love,' she said scornfully. 'What is it about love, when you think of all ...' She was incoherent, and she paused to allow her angry hazel eyes to sweep over the big brown mountain, the other blue faraway mountains, the tall trees and smooth expanses of grass. `When you think of all that there is in the world, the magnitude of the solid earth masses, and the great-
nesses that aren't love, aren't even human ... then isn't love a very small thing, a very petty thing? There's more, much more than love ! There's Abruptly she lifted her eyes to the brown mountain again, then lowered them to her canvas. She drew a strong finger viciously through the paint, smearing brown and red, as she had often done before when fingers seemed to give more to her art than a brush could. 'Much more,' she reiterated.
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