Magic of the Baobab

by Yvonne Whittal

  ‘Just a moment,’ Olivia said quickly, her sympathetic heart dictating her actions as she prevented Sanet’s departure and turned to face Gerald. ‘Was there anything else you wanted to do in town this afternoon? I mean after you left here?’

  Gerald frowned slightly. ‘Well ... no. ”

  ‘Then why don’t you offer Miss Pretorius a lift home?’ she prodded him gently in what she hoped was the right direction.

  Sanet’s eyes widened with alarm. ‘That really isn’t necessary. I don’t mind the walk, and—’

  ‘But of course I’ll give you a lift home, Sanet,’ Gerald interrupted firmly, fired into action, much to Olivia’s delight. ‘It would be silly not to, considering that we’re both going in the same direction,’ he continued, his persuasive charm having the desired effect on Sanet as she hovered in the doorway. ‘If you’ll just give me a few seconds to get a

  tablet of drawing paper, then I’ll be right with you.’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure ...’

  ‘Naturally, I’m sure,’ Gerald insisted, his brilliant smile conquering Sanet completely while Olivia, feeling ridiculously like Cupid, made a pretence of being completely oblivious of the emotional little scene she had just witnessed.

  Sanet Pretorius had taken Gerald seriously, she realised after they had gone. But it was much more than that, if her inexperienced observations had been correct. Sanet was in love with Gerald. The flushed cheeks, the trembling hands, and the breathless quality in her voice had told Olivia that more clearly than words could have done. And Gerald? Was it possible that, despite his protestations to the contrary, he was more than mildly interested in the young teacher he had once taken out a few times? If he had had no interest in her at all, would he have agreed to her suggestion so readily that he should offer Sanet a lift home?

  ‘Oh, dear,’ she said to herself with a measure of concern.

  ‘I hope I haven’t interfered in something which could only bring that girl further unhappiness.’

  ‘Hello! Is anyone here?’ a child’s voice brought Olivia hurrying from the back of the shop.

  ‘Frances!’ she exclaimed softly, her glance going with swift pleasure over the child’s sturdy frame dressed in a floral cotton frock and sandals before she met the dark eyes focussed so intently on her person. ‘I was wondering when I would see you again, but I’m so glad you decided to come today because Tante Maria has sent me a date loaf to have with my tea, and I couldn’t possibly eat it all by myself.’

  ‘Tante Maria makes the best date loaf in the district,’ Frances informed Olivia as she followed her into the back where she was making tea and slicing the date loaf under discussion. ‘Did you know that?’

  ‘No, but I can believe that because everything else she makes is absolutely delicious,’ Olivia admitted, thankful for the flask of iced orange juice she had brought down after lunch as she poured it into a glass for Frances before she poured herself a cup of tea.

  ‘Miss Logan ... ’ Frances began hesitantly once they had returned inside and sat facing each other across the counter.

  Olivia smiled encouragingly at her. ‘When you call me Miss Logan, you make me feel ancient, so what about calling me Olivia?’

  ‘Daddy says it’s disrespectful for children to call adults by their first names.’

  Bernard King obviously took an interest in his child’s upbringing, Olivia realised, impressed by the child’s remark. ‘If I give you permission to call me by my name, then that makes a difference, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose it does,’ Frances admitted at length, making instant use of this new freedom as she asked, ‘Olivia, may I sit behind the counter with you?’

  ‘Of course you may,’ she agreed instantly. ‘Can you bring that stool round to this side by yourself?’

  ‘It’s not very heavy,’ Frances replied, testing its weight before carrying it round to Olivia’s side.

  ‘There you are,’ Olivia smiled, placing the glass of orange juice in front of Frances and shifting the plate to within easy reach. ‘Now, let’s eat that date loaf. I’m dying to taste it! ’

  The slices disappeared one after the other, indicating that Frances was either hungry, or possessed an exceptionally good appetite. Whatever the reason, they soon emptied the plate between them.

  ‘Do you like books?’ Frances wanted to know, her dark eyes questioning above the rim of her glass.

  ‘I enjoy reading them,’ Olivia admitted, glancing about her at the shelves filled with reading matter to suit all tastes. ‘I also love holding a beautifully bound book in my hands, and feeling the quality of the paper between my fingers. Books have their own particular smell, did you know that? Whether it’s the paper, the ink, or the material used for binding, I wouldn’t know, but I think I could be led blindfolded into a library and I would know where I was. ’

  ‘Did you have a bookshop in Johannesburg as well?’

  ‘No,’ Olivia shook her head, focussing her attention on Frances once more. ‘I worked in a library.’

  Dark eyes lit up with interest. ‘Were there millions of books in the library?’

  ‘Well, not quite as many as that,’ Olivia smiled, steering the conversation away from herself. ‘What are you going to do when you leave school one day?’

  Frances frowned, drawing her brows into a straight line. ‘I wanted to become a cattle rancher like my daddy, but Daddy says farming isn’t for women, and I should rather take a degree in something more suitable.’

  ‘Oh,’ Olivia said inadequately. It was not unusual for women to take up farming these days, but, if Bernard King had other ideals for his daughter, it was none of her business. ‘Have you decided yet in which direction you would like to study?’

  ‘No,’ Frances replied, draining her glass and placing it on the counter. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘You still have plenty of time to decide, though,’ Olivia reminded her gently, wondering suddenly what Frances’ serious little face would look like when it was creased with laughter.

  ‘That’s what Daddy says too.’

  Judging by her expression this was a painful subject to Frances, and Olivia changed the direction of the conversation yet again. ‘Do you go home every week-end, Frances?’

  ‘Yes,’ the child responded, her expression becoming quite animated. ‘Daddy fetches me on a Friday afternoon, and brings me back on a Monday morning. I hate Monday mornings,’ she said fiercely. ‘Especially after a nice weekend.’

  ‘You enjoy your week-ends at home, then?’ Olivia prompted casually.

  Frances slipped her hands beneath her thighs and swung her legs to and fro on the high stool, her reminiscent glance going beyond Olivia. ‘When Daddy isn’t too busy we take the horses and ride into the veld. There’s a big baobab tree on Mountain

  View, and we sometimes have a picnic lunch there because it’s so close to the dam if we want to have a swim.’ Her intelligent glance met Olivia’s. ‘Did you know that the stem of a baobab tree can be anything up to twenty-eight metres in circumference?’

  Startled by the child’s extensive vocabulary, Olivia said: ‘No, I didn’t know. I’ve never seen a baobab tree close up, only from a distance while travelling in my car. ’

  ‘Why don’t you come out to Mountain View this weekend, then I could show it to you,’ Frances offered eagerly. ‘We’ve got plenty of baobab trees on our farm besides that big one which is very old. ’

  Olivia’s mind ticked over rapidly in order to decline the invitation in a way that would not hurt Frances’ feelings. ‘It’s very kind of you to offer, Frances,’ she managed eventually, ‘but I don’t think your father will take kindly to having a stranger like myself arriving on his doorstep. Not even for the purpose of admiring the baobab trees on his ranch.’

  ‘Ilona Haskins is always there and Daddy doesn’t seem to mind,’ Frances scowled, making her displeasure clearly evident.

  ‘She’s a friend of your father’s, and that makes a difference,’ Olivia reasoned carefully.
/>   ‘I’ll just tell Daddy that you’re my friend.’

  Olivia stared at her for a moment, a peculiar warmth encasing her heart. ‘Am I your friend, Frances?’

  ‘Yes,’ came the adamant reply, the determination in the small jutting chin matching the expression in her dark eyes. ‘I like you. You’re not like Ilona Haskins, and I wish ...” Heartshaped lips were drawn into a thin line. ‘I wish Daddy would tell her to stay away from Mountain View.’

  ‘If your father enjoys Miss Haskins’ company, then you must try to accept her presence there,’ Olivia replied with gentle firmness, not wishing to encourage Frances’ apparent dislike, but Frances would not be swayed.

  ‘I don’t like her, and she doesn’t like me either.’

  Olivia’s eyebrows rose in shocked surprise. ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘I can tell by the way she looks at me when Daddy’s not there to see,’ Frances replied without hesitation, leaving Olivia speechless with the realisation that, if Frances was speaking the truth, Bernard King was having the wool pulled thoroughly over his eyes. Frances herself broke the tense silence by glancing regretfully at the clock against the wall. ‘I’d better go now.’

  ‘Thank you for coming, Frances,’ Olivia said, gathering her wits about her with an effort. ‘And take care on the way back to the hostel’

  ‘I will, and ...” Frances slid off the stool and hesitated, her glance suddenly pleading. ‘Olivia, promise you’ll come out to Mountain View some time?’

  An unaccustomed tightness gripped Olivia’s throat. ‘I can’t promise, but I’ll try ... some time.’

  Satisfied, Frances sped from the shop, leaving Olivia with several disturbing thoughts racing through her mind. Was Frances correct in her assumption concerning Ilona Haskins, or was she merely rejecting the possibility of someone taking her mother’s place in the future? Children have been known to become jealously possessive of their one remaining parent, and Frances, so intense at times, could quite easily fit into that category.

  Olivia cleared away her supper dishes that evening and went round to Oom Hennie and Tante Maria as she had promised earlier that day and, as they sat around the scrubbed wooden table in Tante Maria’s spacious kitchen, the conversation inevitably turned to her young visitor that afternoon.

  ‘I saw Frances King at your shop again this afternoon,’ Tante Maria broached the subject, her curious glance meeting Olivia’s briefly while she poured the coffee.

  ‘Between the two of us we practically finshed the date loaf you brought me,’ Olivia admitted, smiling as she recalled Frances’s absorption until the last crumb had been cleared from the plate. ‘It was delicious. Thank you.’

  ‘That child’s lonely,’ Oom Hennie muttered, filling the bowl of his pipe with tobacco and striking a match.

  ‘She’s more than lonely,’ Tante Maria added forcefully, placing their cups in front of them and lowering herself into a chair. ‘She needs a mother, but I feel sorry for her if Ilona Haskins ends up being that mother. ’

  Olivia frowned down at the table. ‘Frances doesn’t appear to like her very much. ’

  ‘Very few people do like Ilona Haskins,’ Tante Maria, enlightened Olivia despite her husband’s warning glance. ‘She’s very beautiful and very charming, but underneath that lovely exterior there’s a hardness that’s unbecoming in a woman. She wants Bernard King, and she’s made it perfectly obvious by the manner in which she’s hung around him since his wife died six years ago.’

  Olivia was beginning to believe Frances’ remarks about this woman she had yet to meet. ‘Do you think Mr. King will marry her eventually?’

  ‘I can’t say,’ Tante Maria shrugged, ‘but if he does want to marry her, then he’s certainly taking his time about it.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s thinking of his daughter,’ Olivia observed thoughtfully, recalling partly her conversation with Frances that afternoon. ‘It sounds as though they enjoy a good, healthy relationship. ’

  ‘Bernard King idolises his daughter,’ Oom Hennie chipped in, puffing happily at his pipe and filling the kitchen with the aromatic odour of his particular brand of tobacco. ‘He’s also very strict, I believe.’

  ‘I only hope that, whatever he decides, he doesn’t jeopardise his daughter’s future happiness,’ Olivia stated, feeling inexplicably protective towards a child she had only met twice.

  Tante Maria’s glance was curiously intent, and faintly humorous. ‘It seems to me that you’ve developed a soft spot for Frances King.’

  A soft spot! Could one call it that, this warmth that invaded her heart each time she thought of Frances? Olivia pondered this in silence until she became aware of two pairs of eyes watching her closely, and questionably.

  ‘She’s a very pretty child, and very intelligent,’ she explained lamely, a faint mist clouding her vision as she added, ‘And she says I’m her friend.’

  Blinking rapidly to prevent the ridiculous tears from spilling over her lashes, she missed the enquiring glance that flashed between her two elderly companions, but finding nothing amiss when she eventually raised her glance and changed the subject.

  Vivien paid Olivia a visit the following afternoon, bringing along her own tapestry as she had promised. She was very persuasive in her efforts to make Olivia change her mind about entering her tapestry in the Show, but Olivia managed to avoid committing herself by inviting Vivien to have tea with her and skilfully changing the subject.

  Vivien was, Olivia discovered, a very lonely woman despite her involvement with the organisation of the local Show. Her husband, Peter, had his regular surgery hours twice daily, and the rest of the time he was out on call, leaving Vivien very much to herself during the days, and quite often during the nights as well.

  ‘I’m not complaining,’ Vivien assured her hastily. ‘I knew what I was letting myself in for when I married a country doctor, but ...’ Her expression grew wistful. ‘If we could have hada child, but ...’ she smiled resignedly. ‘Miracles don’t always happen—not to me anyway.’

  Not wishing to mention the fact that Frances had already enlightened her in this respect, Olivia remained silent, but Vivien apparently did not expect a sympathetic reply to her remark, for her attention had been diverted by some or other activity outside the shop.

  ‘That’s strange,’ she muttered frowningly, meeting Olivia’s questioning glance. ‘I just saw Bernard passing in his Land Rover, and he doesn’t usually come to town in the middle of the week. I wonder if something has happened to Frances?’ Anxiety gripped Olivia. ‘Do you think she might be ill?’

  ‘I hope not,’ Vivien said firmly, gathering up her tapestry bag and rising to her feet in an unconsciously graceful movement. ‘I’d better go home because, if she is ill, Bernard will bring her along to the surgery.’ She smiled apologetically at Olivia, but her smile was tinged with concern. ‘I’m sorry I have to rush off like this, but I must be at home in case I’m needed. ’

  Olivia assured her hastily that she understood perfectly, and moments later she found herself alone with her own troubled thoughts concerning Frances, wishing that she had the right to telephone the hostel to enquire after the child. In an effort to brush off her uneasiness, she took the empty cups through to the back and rinsed them under the tap in the basin.

  She was fortunately kept busy for the next hour, leaving her little time to ponder the reason for Bernard King’s unexpected trip to Louisville. It was really no concern of hers to be so anxious about a child she hardly knew, she told herself sternly, and yet ... !

  As the last customer left the shop, Olivia sighed tiredly, but her peace was shattered seconds later by the sound of a vehicle door being slammed with force moments before heavy footsteps entered her shop. She relinquished her task of straightening the books on the shelves and turned, her smile freezing on her lips as her glance encountered the ferocious-looking man who stood towering over her menacingly. Except for the broad forehead, straight dark brows above dark, angry eyes, high cheekbones, and
aristocratic nose, the rest of his features were obscured by a black beard which was flecked abundantly with grey. A wide- brimmed hat with a leopardskin band was tilted at an arrogant angle on his equally dark head, and, as he stepped towards her, she was made aware of the smell of the sun and the veld which clung to him. Unreasonable and unaccustomed fear made her back away involuntarily, but the shelves dug into her back, halting her progress.

  ‘Miss Logan?’ he queried abruptly, the deep timbre of his voice vibrating along her nerves as she became alarmingly aware of his enormous height and broad, powerful shoulders which tapered down to slim hips.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Bernard King,’ he enlightened her harshly, at the same time answering her silent, frantic query as to the familiarity in the shape of his eyebrows and the intensity of his dark brown eyes fringed with thick black lashes. It was almost impossible to believe that this enormous man, clad in khaki bush jacket and pants that clung almost too tightly to broad shoulders and muscular thighs, was Frances’ father, and something warned her that the reason for his visit was not a social one. ‘I would like to know exactly what you think you’re doing by encouraging my daughter to leave the hostel grounds on two occasions during the past two weeks, and offering her refreshments as enticement to repeat the offence.’

  His attack was as unexpected as his appearance, and she stared at him speechlessly for a few seconds before finding her voice. ‘Mr. King, I assure you, I—’

  ‘You are aware, I suppose, that she’s at boarding school, and that there are certain disciplinary rules that have to be adhered to in such an establishment?’

  ‘I realise that, Mr. King, but—’

  ‘You realise this, and yet you deliberately encouraged her to break one of the most important rules of the hostel?’ he interrupted her in a thundering, incredulous voice that made her flinch inwardly. ‘Really, Miss Logan, have you no sense at all, or does your behaviour stem from a lack of discipline in your own life?’