by Isobel Chace
‘That’s fine!’ He patted her shoulder in a fatherly way that was not in the least familiar. ‘Heard you were having a bit of a time and wanted you to feel you were welcome. You haven’t had time to get down here much, but when you do, you’ll find us a nice enough bunch.’
He stuck his hat on the back of his head, so that the peak pointed straight up towards the heavens, and opened the door for her.
‘Let’s go and get it over with and then we can have a cup of tea. Okay with you?’
‘Very much so!’ Sara agreed.
She got into the driving seat of the Jaguar and waited a little timidly for him to sit down beside her.
‘Right!’ he said as he slammed the door. ‘Through the gate and we’ll start on the figure of eight.’
To Sara, who had been expecting a quiet drive pound the town in the English fashion, the thoroughness of the test came as a surprise. Round and round the field they went, pulling up with her off-wheel on his handkerchief, skidding on oil patches — a hair-raising experience, but giving very much the same impression as mud in the rains and a number of other tests all designed to prove absolute mastery over the car.
It seemed to Sara that the faults were piling up and that she would never pass. The idea of confessing her failure to Matt was decidedly unattractive too, so, gritting her teeth, she tried to carry out Mr. Cooper’s instructions, wishing that it had been just a little less hot, for the sweat ran down her back and prickled her skin, which made her feel both tired and fractious.
At last he turned to her and signalled that the test was at an end.
‘You’ll do,’ he said. ‘Sorry to give you such a grinding, but if you’re to drive that jeep miles all by yourself I wanted to be quite sure that you’d know what you were doing with it!’
You mean I’ve passed?’ Sara asked unbelievingly.
‘Just that,’ he smiled, ‘Feel like that cuppa now?’
‘I can’t believe it!’ she exclaimed.
Even when she held the precious piece of paper in her hand proving that she was fitted to drive within the boundaries of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, she could scarcely believe that she had actually done it!
Mr. Cooper poured her out a hot and extremely strong cup of tea.
‘I’m told that’s how you nurses like it,’ he said, wiping away the sweat on his face with an enormous scarlet handkerchief, the like of which Sara had never seen outside of Beatrix Potter books, where the illustrations always show Farmer Giles asleep under one of the same kind.
‘Can you tell me where the Copper Kettle is?’ she asked. ‘I’m meeting James and Felicity there.’
‘It’s in the High Street. Run by old Mrs. Jarvis, poor soul. Her husband should never have brought her out here. She’s the kind that pines.’
‘For England?’
He nodded. ‘You get some,’ he said, admitting the fact while obviously not understanding it. ‘They don’t seem happy unless they can walk up the High Street in their particular little town every day. She’s one of that sort — not that she says much.’
‘Hence the name the Copper Kettle?’
‘Yep. Though to give her her due, she has got one in the window. An Arab made it for her in Zanzibar. Nice job too, she tried it to see if it really worked.’
Sara was sorry to leave the station. It seemed hotter than ever outside, although one or two Europeans were appearing in the streets again, showing that it was nearing tea-time. But the shadows were still very short — Sara had not yet become accustomed to the sensation of being able to stand in the middle of a small ring of shadow for the majority of the day, before the sun suddenly dropped from the skies and disappeared over the horizon.
She found the Copper Kettle without any difficulty, recognizing it by the kettle in the window. It was a smart, modern place, decorated mainly in scarlet and black, which Sara thought a mistake, and selling teas, icecreams and milk-shakes. The espresso coffee craze had not yet caught up with the town, though in Dar-es-Salaam she had seen several coffee bars.
Mrs. Jarvis circulated her customers as though they were so many friends that had dropped in to see her. She was angular and very smart, importing her clothes and her scent directly from Paris, and she waged perpetual warfare on the local Club that stole so much of her custom by being a much more comfortable place to relax in altogether. She was quite different from the comfortable person Mr. Cooper had somehow managed to conjure up in Sara’s imagination.
It was obvious that she was expecting Sara. As soon as she saw the nurse’s uniform, she excused herself from the little group she was talking to and came towards her.
‘Nurse Wayne?’ she asked, and hurried on without waiting for a reply. ‘What have you been doing, you naughty girl! I have someone waiting here for you!’
She led the way over to a corner table, where a man was sitting hunched up over it, obviously in a very bad temper. Where was Felicity? Sara wondered. And then she saw that it wasn’t James at the table. It was a furiously angry Matt!
CHAPTER NINE
When Matt turned to greet her she saw that his eyes had taken on the grey of winter. The usual blue had dissolved in his anger. She felt a little shiver of apprehension and wished Mrs. Jarvis would go away instead of watching , them both with such obvious curiosity.
With an effort she sat down at the table and tried to look unconcerned.
‘Where are James and Felicity?’ she asked.
Matt gave her a rather puzzled look.
‘I sent them back to Kwaheri,’ he said bleakly. ‘We’ll have two teas, please, Mrs. Jarvis.’
At any other time Sara would have been amused by Mrs. Jarvis’s obvious resentment at being dismissed in such a way, but now she was too busy trying to control that little patch of fear in the pit of her stomach. What had she done wrong? she wondered. What could she have done to make Matt look at her like that?
‘I passed my test,’ she said nervously. ‘Mr. Cooper passed me. He — he seemed a little surprised to see me in the middle of the afternoon, but he was very kind. I didn’t think I was doing very well, but he was satisfied that I would be able to take the jeep anywhere, so he let me through.’
‘Congratulations,’ Matt grunted.
The African waiter, immaculately clad in white, brought their tea and placed it carefully on the table in front of them.
‘Would you like something to eat?’ Matt asked her.
Sara shook her head.
‘Just tea,’ 'she said. ‘It’s so marvellously cooling and I’m so terribly hot!’ She smiled, but there was no answering smile from Matt. He waited for the African to leave them and then turned his attention full on her.
‘And what exactly were you doing in town today?’ he asked smoothly.
‘But you sent me to take my driving test!’ Sara exclaimed, thoroughly bewildered.
‘I did?’ Matt repeated angrily. ‘I did nothing of the kind! Is it likely that I would send you down here during the hottest part of the day? Who talked you into this, Sara? James?’
‘No,’ she denied unhappily. ‘Someone came down from the house with a note stating that you had arranged for me to have my test this afternoon.’
‘I did nothing of the kind! What did you do with the note?’
‘I tore it up,’ she confessed.
‘Pity. It looks to me as though someone is trying to make trouble.’ He gave her hot, anxious face a searching glance. ‘I’m taking your word for your part in this affair, but I’m not satisfied that James and Felicity had nothing to do with it.’ His face broke into a sudden smile. ‘Don’t look so worried, I’m not going to eat you!’
‘I was wishing that I hadn’t come,’ she said a little forlornly. ‘Your mother had wanted me at the Clinic this afternoon, and Dr. Cengupta only let me go because the note was from you.’
She remembered then that the messenger had also said that Matt was spending the day driving Julia down to Tanga. He couldn’t possibly have gone the whole way there and back alread
y.
‘He told me you were going to Tanga,’ she said out loud.
‘Who did? Karim?’
‘No, the man who brought the note. He said you were driving Julia down.’
Matt pushed his cup across to her side of the table for her to refill for him.
‘There had been some such plans yesterday,’ he admitted, ‘but we put it off, because we’re so near the annual family meeting. It wouldn’t have been worth her while, to go down to the Coast and come back again.’
‘No, I suppose not,’ Sara agreed doubtfully. It was silly to feel so wretched merely because Julia had not after all left the neighbourhood. Not that it mattered to her. She rarely saw the other girl and then it was usually at a distance — too far away to do more than exchange a casual nod, certainly not near enough for a conversation. Julia took pretty good care of that.
She wished urgently that she could be on the same footing with Matt as she had been at Sonjo. The friendship she had valued so greatly seemed to have vanished and she was once again the new nurse on trial, and not, she thought wryly, proving herself very well!
‘All the cousins will be descending on us in another week,’ Matt went on, playing with his teaspoon so that it rattled maddeningly in his saucer. Sara longed to tell him to leave it alone. She put out a hand to the teapot to refill his cup in the hope of distracting his attention, and surprisingly his hand covered hers and she was aware that he was looking at her in a way that made her knees feel weak.
‘How well do you like Tanzania?’ he asked.
Her tongue felt almost too big for her mouth. Breathlessly she moistened her lips.
‘I — I love it,’ she murmured, so quietly that he had to lean forward to hear her.
‘Would you like to live here always? Become a citizen?’
She nodded. She wished that she could have made an enthusiastic speech about it. A small nod said nothing of her feelings. She loved the country! But it appeared that Matt was satisfied, for his mouth took on a rather tender expression.
‘You could do just that, if you married me.’ He dropped the words as though they meant nothing more than a remark on the state of the weather.
‘I don’t — I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ Sara said desperately.
He grinned then. A smile of pure amusement that brought Sara abruptly back to earth. How silly she had been to think that he could have meant it!
‘I could live here,’ she agreed, she hoped as casually, ‘but I have old-fashioned ideas about marriage.’
‘It all depends how old-fashioned,’ he said dryly. ‘I want you to marry me as soon as possible. We can announce our engagement to the family while they’re here — and that will put a spoke in quite a number of their wheels!’ he added with satisfaction.
‘But — but why?’ she asked.
His eyebrows shot up.
‘Do you really have to be told?’ he asked a little irritably. ‘Because I like you. Because I find it nearly impossible to be angry with you — unusual for someone of my temper! And because I shall have to have some sort of buffer between myself and my female cousins next week. Julia has proved that to me quite conclusively!’
It wasn’t at all the list she had hoped to hear. She felt very much as she had when he had told her that he was going to take the plane down before the engine gave out.
We might crash! a voice said in her head. Yes, she agreed, we might crash, but it would be a glorious, final, total crash. There would be no survivors. Not as far as she was concerned. She found herself searching his face for reassurance as she had that once before.
‘Well?’ he asked.
‘I’ll marry you,’ she heard herself saying.
She was a fool. Anyone could have told her that. What possible chance of happiness did she have? But there was that other side of her that was so oddly confident, that, surprisingly, had decided to be happy about it. So happy that she could feel it tingling in her flesh. This part of her was sure, certain sure, that once she was Matt’s wife she would not find it so very difficult to make him fall in love with her.
They were both suffering from a feeling of anti-climax as they drove back to Kwaheri. It should have been such a big moment — a moment worth more than a shy smile and a relieved look. Sara felt that somehow they had cheated and she wished that she had asked for time before making up her mind. He could not possibly know how much she was in love with him, so why did he think she had agreed to marry him? His face was the face of a stranger and gave nothing away. She hoped ardently that he didn’t think it was just because he was about the best catch in the district.
‘Mother will be pleased,’ Matt broke into the silence. ‘She likes you.’
Was it just the nervous tension that made her think he sounded as though there was something odd in that?
With deliberation she relaxed and found that her muscles were quite stiff, as though she had been taking part in some form of violent exercise. She felt more and more like some piece of flotsam — or was it jetsam? — that had been washed up on a strange and not very friendly shore.
‘It doesn’t feel very real, does it?’ She was surprised to find that she had spoken aloud.
‘Doesn’t it?’ His voice was gentle and curiously understanding. ‘Do you want to retract?’
‘N — no.’
‘Good. Because I have no intention of letting you escape, my dear.’ He gave her an odd smile. ‘I need you too badly.’
She could feel herself blushing and turned her attention to the landscape outside the window. The burnt grass shimmered in the hot sun, or was it because of the unshed tears at the back of her eyes?
A lion stalked across the horizon with the easy relaxed motion of a cat. He turned and looked at the car and Sara caught a glimpse of his tawny, golden eyes, proud and reserved. She gasped in her excitement and tugged at Matt’s sleeve to attract his attention. Obediently he stopped the car and they watched as it walked slowly away from them, its front feet crossing ridiculously as it walked.
‘Probably has his pride somewhere over there,’ Matt told her. ‘I’m sorry we haven’t time to go and see, darling, but there’ll be plenty more.’
Darling! She would have to get used to that. When she was expecting it perhaps her heart wouldn’t thump quite so disturbingly.
‘It’s — it’s quite all right,’ she stammered.
Julia, she thought with sudden foreboding, would have managed very much better. She would at least have managed some witticism that would have released the tension and made everything seem normal between them. Julia would never be at a loss when it came to employing the age-old feminine devices. Sara, on the other hand, had never had a specially high opinion of her own capabilities in that direction.
When they turned off on to the long, dusty road that led to Kwaheri and to nowhere else, her thoughts came round to her aunt and baulked at the prospect of telling her that she had indeed become engaged to Matt.
‘When — when are we going to tell people?’ she asked abruptly. Perhaps she would have a few more days of grace in which to prepare herself.
Matt’s eyes narrowed.
‘I don’t believe in dodging the issue,’ he said distinctly. ‘We’ve had enough of that with James and Felicity. I’ll tell my mother and your aunt as soon as we get in.’
There was very little hope that Mrs. Wayne would display any tact.
‘I’ll tell Aunt Laura,’ she announced with decision.
He gave way gracefully. ‘I don’t anticipate any difficulty in that direction,’ he added, and there was a distinct undercurrent of laughter in his voice. Was it possible that he had known all about Mrs. Wayne’s plans for them both from the very beginning? Sara could feel her cheeks burning at the thought.
It was almost a relief when they came to a stop outside the hospital and she slid out of the car in a great hurry, managing no more than a confused thank you. She knew that Matt didn’t drive off immediately, but she couldn’t bring herself to
look back at him. One way and another it had been quite an afternoon!
She had barely reached her room when she heard the Indian doctor’s hurrying footsteps coming down the corridor and a second later he appeared in the doorway.
‘Did you pass?’ he asked.
‘Pass?’ she repeated stupidly.
‘Your test, nurse?’
Her test! What a long time it seemed since she had been driving the Jaguar around the testing field in the gruelling hot sun. She looked at Dr. Cengupta with surprise and was touched to see that he really cared whether she had done well.
‘Yes, I passed,’ she smiled. ‘I don’t quite know how, but I passed. The things he thought up for me to do! Did you have to go over the oil patch when you took yours?’
Dr. Cengupta joyfully told the story of his own test, with graphic and largely imaginary details thrown in, when he saw Nurse Lucy’s eyes growing rounder and rounder, as she too listened from the doorway, equally anxious to know how Sara had got on.
‘We must have a little celebration,’ he enthused. ‘I shall arrange it!’ He looked at Sara a little anxiously. ‘Would you be prepared to come up to my house?’ he asked her.
‘I should love to!’ she responded immediately.
‘My wife would be very honoured to serve you tea,’ he suggested. ‘We are very Anglicized in that way,’ he beamed. ‘We both of us live for our afternoon tea!’
A gleam of mischief entered into Sara’s eyes. ‘I’m surprised you need to ask, doctor,’ she teased him. ‘Since when has a nurse ever refused a cup of tea?’
He laughed, his white, perfect teeth flashing.
‘I shall tell Kamala to prepare for tomorrow,’ he said. ‘And let’s hope there will be no emergency!’
While he was in such a good mood Sara told him what Matt had said about the note she had received. She knew the doctor was a moody man and had no ambition to let him find out what had happened from someone else. Carefully she omitted any mention of Matt’s suspicions that either Felicity or James might be involved in the mix-up, but she added that she thought Matt would probably be looking into the whole affair.