by Vaso
Mr and Mrs Ducaine and their daughter Emma reached them at that moment.
'Kemp!'
They were smiling in warm welcome and only Emma's smile faltered when they turned to Valentine, although her mother's grew a little frosty.
'When did you arrive, Kemp?' Emma questioned eagerly.
'How are you all? I arrived in Johannesburg this afternoon, flew down to Cape Town this evening, picked up a new car and drove out immediately,' he informed them, arching an enquiring eyebrow when he saw the mischievous'delight transforming Valentine's lovely face, but she held her peace. Enlightenment would come.
'About time too,' Mr Ducaine, stocky and greying, commended cheerfully. 'And Valentine—are you pleased with your new boss?'
'I've only just this minute realised that he is my boss, Mr Ducaine,' she told him. 'Valentine McLaren, Mr Irvine.'
'My God!' He looked at her, eyes brilliant with contemptuous amusement. 'I was imagining one of your bright sensible P.R. types when that lawyer told me he'd hired someone—but I suppose the man is as fallible as anyone."
'Anyone, except you?' Valentine murmured, recalling his remark about being armoured against women like her.
'Clever as well as beautiful,' he comm'ented.
Emma was looking disconsolate and now she broke in abruptly, 'The two of you were talking together long enough, Kemp. How was it that you never got round to introducing yourselves?'
'Oh, names aren't of much importance in the sort of situation in which we found ourselves, Emma,' he said lightly, flicking a cruel glance at Valentine. 'You see, Valentine was trying to pick me up.'
Valentine quivered inwardly as if at a blow, but gave
him a shatteringly beautiful smile. 'Crude, Irvine, very crude.'
'But true.'
Mr Ducaine laughed, insensitive to his daughter's mortification or his wife's disapproval. 'And why not, I ask you? She's had to make do with the stereotyped scions of the winefarming nobility for six months now, and they're not really in her league. You must have seemed like the answer to a prayer, Kemp.'
'A maiden's prayer?' Kemp's eyes gleamed.
'Mother!' Emma breathed faintly, distressed.
'I don't think I approve of this sort of conversation,' Mrs Ducaine stated distastefully, rising to her daughter's appeal. 'I'm sure that now Miss McLaren knows your identity, Kemp, her attitude will change.'
'Will it, Valentine?' he asked sceptically.
Truthfully, she wasn't sure. 'Obviously, we'll be seeing a great deal of each other, so the answer to that will keep. Unless, of course, you're comtemplating firing me?'
'I must certainly consider that resort,' he countered smoothly. 'I hate to think what you're doing to Fleurmont's image. The main part of your job, I believe, brings you into contact with the visiting public. Most of die estates, as I recall, have nice girls like Emma in that particular role.'
Valentine couldn't fault that description of Emma, although the other girl didn't seem to like it much and looked unhappy. She was indeed a nice girl, an outdoor girl, the-girl-next-door, neidier too overwhelmingly clever nor too boringly stupid, and she was pretty as well. Her hair, aristocratic-mouse, was always squeaky clean, and she wore it long and straight. Pink, sweet lips concealed good teeth, her eyes were clear and grey, and she had a good figure although her bones were heavier than Valentine's, and she was perhaps three inches shorter. She was actually a few months older than Valentine, but seemed much younger.
Valentine had frequently reflected on how much Emma seemed to dislike her, and now, noticing the way she looked at Kemp Irvine, decided that prior knowledge of the man had been the cause. She felt a brief stirring of wistfulness. Emma was ideal material for an estate owner's wife. Would Kemp prove to be the typical estate owner? But surely he was a man apart. Was Emma rare and special enough for him?
'Valentine knows her job and does it well,' Mr Ducaine, who liked- her, was speaking up for her.
'And as the prime requisite of any job is keeping the boss happy, I think I should be getting back to Fleurmont now,' Valentine said, looking at Kemp. 'How awful! You'll have arrived at the house and found no one there and no preparations for your return, except that Salome Jansen and Maude did go through the bedrooms with a duster and polisher this morning. I'm so sorry.'
'You're apologising for nothing,' he assured her. 'I haven't been to Fleurmont yet. I saw the lights from the main road as I passed here, realised a party was in progress and decided to gatecrash in the hope of encountering old friends and acquaintances. You were unexpected. You don't really fit in, do you, so it might be as well if you did make your departure now.'
It was a c^ear dismissal, and not a polite one, but she already knew he was a man who would eschew good manners when they might get in the way of his making his wishes known.
'Will I see you later, or tomorrow?' she asked.
'Oh, don't wait up, Valentine,' Emma advised, having apparently recovered some of her usual spirit, perhaps realising that Kemp seemed to dislike the other girl. 'We'll probably keep him here for ages yet.'
'Yes. Kemp is a very old friend of ours, you must understand,' Mrs'Ducaine added distantly.
Valentine looked at her, the powdered and pampered product of the privileged society in which she had lived all her life, and understood very clearly. The plumply pretty older woman was repeating Kemp's suggestion that
she didn't belong and could never do so, warning her to keep her distance. She felt a stirring of regret. Previously Mrs Ducaine had been friendly, and Valentine knew she was witnessing the surfacing of the age-old maternal instinct to defend the offspring's interests.
'I understand,' Valentine said coolly with a malicious little smile, determined not to reveal her hurt. 'I'll say goodnight, then, and go ... After I've seen your son Adam.'
Mrs Ducaine flushed angrily, but her husband laughed and Kemp looked amused, clearly divining her motive.
'He'll probably- insist on driving you home,' Mr Ducaine said knowingly.
'I came in my own car,' Valentine explained, a dazzling smile encompassing them all. 'Goodnight everyone. Mr Irvine . . . Kemp! I'll be seeing you.'
'I'll look forward to it,' he said urbanely, meaninglessly, and transferred his attention to Emma, who had hold of his arm by now, clinging to it as an affectionate child might do.
Valentine moved away from them, taking her time deliberately, her movements imbued with a delicately swaying grace, her pale flawless skin pearly under the soft artificial light that came from the trees.
Adam found her before she found him and she said goodnight, assuring him that she looked forward to seeing him again but skilfully managing to avoid making a definite date.
'I don't know what demands my boss will make on my time now that he's here,' she murmured vaguely.
She went through the same performance with Gary, whose parents had hosted the party, and let him accompany her to her white Escort Sports model.
Excitement was subsiding to a feeling of nervous anticipation of the future as she drove to Fleurmont with her window open to the summer night. Kemp Irvine filled her thoughts. Such a man—not the golden prince of a young girl's dreams, but a man; one she sensed could be cruel and often arrogant—but still such a man as she had waited for. Her self-awareness was such that she could recognise the richly passionate depths of her nature without flinching and, having a natural sense of her own worth as an individual human being, she knew she could never settle for less than would satisfy her. Nor could she ever be less than she was, playing the mouse when she had been born beautiful, and that was why Kemp Irvine hadn't been able to see through to the inner woman with all her doubts and uncertainties.
She had known, since the end of her schooldays, that all she had to do was wait, and one day she would see her mate and recognize him. In the meantime, she had intended to enjoy the waiting, and that first sadness, at seventeen, of being loved but unable to love in return had deterred her only briefly, for she had been young.
It had taken the tragedy of Philip to crush her; to make her realise that the dating game, the flirtation game, could be dangerous when played by someone like herself. After that, die waiting had ceased to be fun. Once her wounds had closed over the inner, permanently throbbing pain of self-blame, she had sworn to avoid the nice men, the sensitive men she liked, such as poor Henry van Wyk tonight. Thus far she could and must go, out of consideration for others, but no farther. Being beautiful could be agonising, but she was defiant about remaining beautiful, making die most of her looks.
Tonight she had seen Kemp Irvine and perhaps the waiting was over. Only he didn't even like her, but once he knew her and understood what had happened to her . .. oh, please, surely he would revise his opinion, for he was a highly intelligent man. But if he didn't—Valentine's mind skipped away from such an unbearable thought.
The Hattinghs' house, close to the entrance of the estate, was in complete darkness as she passed, so they would have to wait until tomorrow to know that Kemp Irvine had arrived. Driving at a lower speed now, Valentine approached the main buildings by way of die
oak-lined drive. They were mighty trees, staunch and old, descendants of the original oaks planted in the Cape by Governor Simon van der Stel in the latter half of die seventeenth century, and they seemed to epitomise all die ancient graciousness of diis region.
Time could hardly be said to have stood still here, but die way of life remained more leisurely and elegant than that to be found in die cities, even an old and beautiful one like Cape Town which Valentine loved. Here die good things abounded: it was a world, of historic, beautifully perserved buildings; exquisite antique furniture which was lovingly cared for and in which people took a pride; a world of fine wines, clear fresh air, dogs and horses.
It came to her dien diat Kemp Irvine was a man of the present, even of the future, coming to this stiller, quieter way of life, and she wondered how he would adapt to it. There was a restlessness she had noticed in him earlier . . .
The estate dogs rushed to greet her as she parked her car in one of the garages, the red setter almost hysterical in his welcome, the Great Dane gentler in accordance with his placid nature, and they kept close beside her as she crossed the courtyard, pausing to look about her with fresh interest now that she knew the owner and wondering if he would find his inheritance a burden and wish to sell.
In the garden stood die old slave-bell, a much-needed reminder to the nostalgic that these were better days, and the three buildings were superb examples of Cape-Dutch architecture widi their diatched roofs and exquisitely curved white gables. Younger dian some of the buildings on neighbouring farms, they were still rich in history, the original living quarters, cellar and coach-house having been constructed in the late i joos. The present wine cellar too, had been built before that century had given way to the next, but die existing main house was a mere hundred and sixty years old.
'Calm down, Rufus!' Valentine adjured the red setter. 'Why are you so neurotic?'
One of the Jansens would have fed the dogs earlier, but Valentine had been unacquainted with dogs until coming here and thus tended to spoil them, so she let them into the house with her and took them through to the kitchen.
'Although Salome will be cross if she finds out,' she murmured as she tossed them the titbits they had known she would provide.
She left them shut in the kitchen, deciding she needn't let them out until she went to bed, and then hesitated, wondering which bedroom Salome would have assigned to her new employer. The main one, probably. She had spent a long time in there that morning, but she wouldn't have made up the bed.
In all the six months she had been on Fleurmont, Valentine had never been inside that main bedroom. She was an intensely private person in many ways, and the value she placed on privacy had been increased with that soul-destroying invasion of her own privacy a year ago, when her name had been on everyone's lips and people had pointed at her in the streets, nudging their companions and some doing even worse than that. Thus she had shrunk fastidiously from intruding on that room where Fleurmont's previous owner and his wife had spent their married life.
Now, however, it was Kemp Irvine's room. Having collected sheets from the linen cupboard, she entered the room, confirmed that Salome had not made up the double bed and rapidly did so herself, removing blankets from the lovely old yellowwood chest which stood at its foot, concentrating on what she was doing yet, at the same time noticing and admiring the appointments of the large room. The furniture was of woods which were unobtainable these days, beautifully looked after, brilliantly polished.
Straightening up and briefly approving her work. Valentine turned away from the bed and her eyes fell on the tiny framed photograph that stood on die dressing-table.
'Philip!'
Her slim hand shook violently as she picked it up to make sure. She had made no mistake. Philip de Villiers looked out of the frame as he had looked at her in life, which soft dark eyes like a labrador's. The delicate features and curly brown hair were as she remembered them, and the sensitive mouth wore a dreamy smile which was something else she remembered.
The photograph clattered back on to the dressing-table top as Valentine bit back a cry of pure pain. For a moment she had been stunned enough to imagine, wildly, that the persecution was starting all over again, that someone had deliberately put the picture there to taunt her.
But it wasn't so, Philip's image stood there because it had a right to.
Pain, anguish, brought her to her knees and she knelt there on the thick soft rug, her arms crossed over her stomach 'where horror and tension became a gnawing torment, while the terrified blankness of her mind gave way to a spinning, frenzied chaos -of thought. Karma, coincidence—could they be that cruel?
And the answer had to be that they could.
A hundred other questions clamoured for answer. -Just how stupid had she been? How could she not have known? She couldn't even remember now if the lawyer had ever mentioned a name to her, or the Jansens or the Hattinghs. If they had, and it had been de Villiers, surely . . . But Smith and Jones, Van der Merwe and Botha—de Villiers was almost as common.
Philip had never mentioned a wine-estate, yet surely only a son's photograph would stand in this main bedroom. If there had been no direct heir then Kemp Irvine's photograph would have had that place.
Dear God, Kemp Irvine . . . Valentine tried to avoid the thought. It was too soon, she was too shocked, to think of the implications.
But—Philip's cousin?
And all the people she had come to know here, Philip's friends, or his parents'? Hadn't they realised who she was? Hadn't they remembered her name? Yet people were strangely obtuse at times and might not connect die Valli of a year ago with the Valentine they knew, while McLaren was ordinary enough and easily forgettable. Anyway, as friends of the family, they might have been sensitive enough to avoid the more sensational reports, the ones that had carried pictures of her.
And Kemp Irvine? Had he not made the connection either? He couldn't have. She had seen dislike and derision in those brilliant blue eyes, but not hatred. He had probably been out of South Africa at the time and had only heard about it all from Philip's parents, who might well have avoided her name altogether.
Valentine shuddered at a sudden memory of Reinette de Villiers, screaming at her, crazed by her hatred and grief for her son, while all around them flashbulbs exploded.
Resentment of the memory gave her strength and she rose to her feet. They had not been true, those words the woman had thrown at her before her husband pulled her away. She would never believe them.
She tilted her chin and glanced at her reflection in the mirror, automatically checking that her make-up did not need renewing. Her sapphire eyes were hard and bright, and her red mouth once again had the tight, bitter look of a year ago.
She would not be destroyed, she was promising herself as she left the room, but already her existence had Become a world of suffering once more.
&nbs
p; She went to die kitchen, realising that Kemp Irvine might arrive soon. He had been travelling a lot today and might be grateful if she left him some coffee in a flask.
Such a little service was all she could give him now, she realised poignantly, at last admitting the knowledge she had been avoiding.
She might have made him want her, understand her,
but once he knew who she was, and the part she had played in that old scandal, and she must tell him, he would feel nothing but hatred for her.
As she felt nothing but hatred for the fate which had played so cruelly widi her.
Her head drooped a little on her slender white neck as she made the coffee, watched by Rufus and Chet. She forced herself to understand the situation and finally succeeded, killing hope just a few hours after it had been born.
CHAPTER TWO
'You may be a right royal bitch, but you've got the saddest mouth I've ever seen.'
Kemp Irvine's quiet voice roused Valentine from the reverie of acid-sharp memories into which she had fallen. She had brought her own cup of coffee into the sitting-room, accompanied by the dogs, and it had grown cold, untouched as she had given way to despair.
Rufus leapt to his feet, a torrent of nervous barks coming from him as he realised a stranger had intruded. Chet rose to his feet but waited for Valentine's reaction before committing himself.
'Quiet, Rufus!' she adjured, trying to gather some composure to her as she got to her feet. 'It's your new master. You'll have to make friends with Chet before he'll stop.'
'Temperamental?' he enquired, giving his attention to Chet.
'And very nervous.' As she felt, at that moment.
'His breed often are. Do they sleep indoors?'
'No. In fact, I'll let them out now,' Valentine volunteered, feeling the need to get out of his sight if only for a few seconds.
Judging by his initial remark, he was fully aware of having caught her in a vulnerable moment, and that, she instructed herself, must never happen again. You didn't share pain; you didn't show it.