Bonds of Matrimony (3 page)

CHAPTER TWO

'ISN'T he simply super?'

Hero had her own opinion about that, but Betsy's enthusiasm was hard to withstand. 'He gave me a very good lunch,' she said. 'We had wine too!'

Betsy laughed. 'How did he talk you into that?'

Hero wished she had kept quiet about the wine. She hadn't been able to decide whether she had liked it very much, or whether she had just thought she had because Benedict Carmichael had been so sure that she wouldn't. It had given her a warm feeling and she had almost become reconciled to the man sitting opposite her.

'Well, tell me!' Betsy prompted her. 'You know you've never touched a drop of intoxicating liquor in your life —'

'I've never had the opportunity before,' said Hero.

'But don't tell him. He thinks I'm a connoisseur.' 'He thinks what? Don't be ridiculous!'

'I told him my mother had taught me all about it,' Hero went on. 'I told him I preferred retsina because I don't think you can get it in Kenya. I hope not! I'm not sure what it is, are you?'

'Greek resinated wine,' Betsy supplied. 'I should think you're pretty safe there. He may even have believed you, your mother being Greek. But whatever induced you to play the fool like that? He's no fool! I told you that before you went to see him.'

As Hero hadn't been able to explain to herself why she had taken it into her head to pretend to a sophistication that her parents had always positively disapproved of, she couldn't explain it to Betsy either.

'I didn't like him,' she said at last.

'You don't have to like him!' Betsy protested. 'What does it matter what he's like? All that matters is that he's your entrance ticket to England. That's what you want, isn't it?'

'He called me an adventuress!'

Betsy's eyes shone. 'Did he though? How splendid! I do think you're lucky, Hero!'

'And immoral,' Hero added. 'He was horrid about it!'

'I love horrid men!' Betsy declared.

'You love any man,' said Hero.

Betsy smiled to herself. 'But it's such fun! Darling, couldn't you bring yourself to fall a little bit in love with him? It's quite easy when you try. I do it all the time! All you have to do is concentrate. You have to think about all his good points and ignore all the bad ones —'

'He hasn't any good points!'

Betsy frowned at her. 'Don't be difficult. Everybody has some good points. He's willing to marry you, isn't he?'

Hero bit her lip, almost as nervous now as she had been when she had been sitting opposite Benedict Carmichael in that enormous dining-room. 'I told him I'd changed my mind —'

'You did what?'

'But Betsy, I had to. You might enjoy such a situation, but I don't find it so easy. He was right, you see. It is an immoral thing to do. One shouldn't use marriage as a convenience. But when I told him that I couldn't do it, he told me I had to, that it was too late for me to withdraw. He says he's going to make me marry him!'

'But that's the most romantic thing I've ever heard!' Betsy exclaimed.

'There's nothing romantic about it!' Hero said

sharply. 'I think he's mad! He's in love with somebody else too - he told me so. Not that he seems to care what she thinks about him. He thinks all women are snakes and should have their fangs drawn

- by him, for preference, I should think - or some such nonsense. Only he thinks she might be an eel. He said

she's rather a darling. I feel terribly sorry for her if she

• /

is -'

'Hero, what are you talking about?' Betsy interrupted her.

'It was something Leonardo da Vinci said about matrimony being like putting your hand into a bag of snakes and hoping to draw out an eel. He said he was going to practise on me!'

'I told you he was frightfully clever,' Betsy said. 'If he was quoting from Leonardo da Vinci, it probably has some clever classical allusion that we don't know anything about. I never understand things like that.'

But Hero did. She didn't much like snakes, though they didn't send shivers up her spine like spiders did, but she was well able to recognize an implied insult to her whole sex even when it was cleverly wrapped up in a quotation from Leonardo da Vinci.

'He was being unpleasant,' she explained. 'He is unpleasant! Really, Betsy, he's the most awful man I've ever met!'

Betsy began to look concerned. Hero recognized the signs of the start of a stubborn rearguard action in her dogged expression. Betsy hated to have any plan she had made changed by anyone other than herself.

'You haven't thought enough about the advantages of marrying him,' she told Hero, her voice filled with a new determination. 'If you dislike him, so much the better! It

might be very awkward if you were to get fond of him and then have to go through with getting a divorce from him. If you find him so awful you won't mind at all! You'll find it much less wearing emotionally. He's bound to have the good manners to let you divorce him —'

'An irretrievable breakdown of marriage doesn't put the blame on anyone,' Hero said. 'Besides, one couldn't describe him as well mannered!'

Betsy's eyes flashed. 'Meaning that you're hurt because he didn't like you,' she began, 'but you don't have to be rude about him. He liked me well enough!'

'They all like you.'

Betsy laughed easily. 'Oh, Hero, you're not trying to like him. If he's as awful as you say he is, you'll have to concentrate even harder on liking him, and more important still, getting him to like you. That's half the battle, I always think. It's hard to dislike even the nastiest of men if he thinks you're absolutely marvellous! Yes, you'd better think about how you can make him fall in love with you. That will give you something to do to take your mind off those snakes he talks about.'

'But I don't want him to be in love with me !'

Betsy rolled her eyes up heavenwards. 'Don't be difficult, darling! Of course you do! It will be much more comfortable for you if you can get the upper hand straight away. No, we'll have to think of a plan as to how you can bowl him over with your wit and beauty, and then he won't be any trouble at all!' Hero's mind boggled at the thought of her doing any such thing. 'I'd have a job!' she said dryly. 'No, I shall write him a polite note thanking him for being willing to marry me, but that I'm going away and I no longer need his help.'

'I think you look lovely sometimes!' Betsy declared. 'Perhaps it would be best if you delivered the note,' Hero went on in the same wry tones. 'I'm sure you'll be able to make him forget all about me if you smile at him!'

'Yes, I expect I could,' Betsy retorted, annoyed. 'But that won't make him forget about your farm. Not even the drought could do that!'

'Well, I'm not going to marry him for that!' Hero said with a violence that was quite foreign to her usual calm nature. 'In fact I'm not going to marry him at all!'

Hero walked down the street with a buoyant feeling of release. The many-coloured bougainvillea pleased her eye and she noticed with added pleasure that the jacaranda trees were just coming into flower. If she went to England, she would have to give up all such familiar sights. She had never been to England and she very possibly wouldn't like it as a place to live. Now that she came to think about it she had heard such stories of the difficulties of life there that she was glad to be staying in the country of her birth.

As she came closer into the centre of the city the pavements filled up with people, half of them rushing to wherever it was they had to go, and the other half standing, staring into space, with nowhere to go. No matter what the government did, more and more people poured in from the villages to look for work in Nairobi, imagining they would find an easier and a better life there. Some did, but many of the young boys were unable to find work and even when they succeeded in getting a job sometimes found themselves regretting the fact that they had exchanged the simple life of their home villages for the barely adequate living which they managed to earn in the bustle of the big city.

Hero reflected on this as she made her way along Kenyatta Avenue towards the little bookshop nearby. Farm life had never left her much time for hobbies and distractions, but she had always been fond of reading and the boys who ran the bookshop had found her a good customer in the past, when she had visited them regularly to choose a selection of books with which to pass her few spare hours. The stock could hardly be called up-to-date and still contained many volumes on farming lore which had not been disturbed for many years and were never likely to attract a customer. But there were still many good things amongst them and, besides, Hero liked to browse whenever the opportunity

came her way.

She was greeted with broad smiles of welcome as she entered the small shop and, after the usual inquiries about the state of her health, the boys offered her a cup of tea - a mark of favour bestowed upon only a few customers. Hero accepted gratefully and, cup and saucer in hand, she wandered to the far corner of the shop to investigate some piles of books in the hope of finding some reading which would take her mind off her current problems.

She was completely absorbed and the sound made by the opening of the shop door to admit another customer failed to register with her until she heard one of the African assistants greet that customer loudly.

'Your book has come in, Mr. Carmichael. Shall I wrap it for you?'

Hero froze. He must not see her! She lowered her head and crept further into the shadows.

'No, I'll take it as it is.' Hero turned a fraction of an inch so that she could watch him pay for the book. After that he would go out - he had to go out! He did nothing of the sort. He accepted his change with a slight smile that grew broader as he looked in her direction.

'Why, Hero, how lucky to find you in here!' he exclaimed as if it were the most natural thing in the world. 'Now I know why you're always late when I arrange to meet you in this part of the town.' He turned back to the counter assistant who had just served him. 'Miss Kaufman and I are going to be married —'

Hero started, spilling her tea in the saucer. She breathed.

The look he gave her was kindly, almost pitying. 'Didn't Betsy tell you I was expecting you for tea? Never mind, you can come along now.' He winked at the assembled staff of the bookshop. 'We have to name the day,' he explained to them. 'I don't want to wait any longer than I have to.'

The Africans grinned. 'No, sir.'

'Ready, Hero?' he went on coolly.

Hero faced him. 'Didn't you get my letter? Betsy— If you saw Betsy, you must have got it.' He looked amused. 'She did say something about your having written to me some kind of a love letter, but, as I told her, anything you have to say to me you can say to my face. I tore it up there and then and gave her back the pieces. It couldn't have been very important when we only settled everything at lunchtime yesterday. What did it say?' He grinned easily. 'Or shall I tell you? I'll bet it was a nice, ladylike thank-you letter for giving you lunch yesterday. Well, am I right?'

Aware of the interested eyes all round her, Hero nodded. What else could she do? She could hardly give him his conge in the full public eye. In fact she didn't think she could do it at all if she had to look him in the eye at the same time. Whatever had made him tear up her letter? Was it possible that he had known? But that wasn't possible. Only Betsy had known what was in the note, and Betsy would never have betrayed her at such a traumatic point in her affairs. Hero heaved a great sigh of relief.

'I haven't seen Betsy this afternoon, so she couldn't have told me about your expecting me to tea,' she said aloud.

She pulled out a large, heavy textbook, turning it over

in her hands, not bothering to pretend to look at it.

'You going to take that, Miss Kaufman?' one of the Africans asked her, splitting his sides with laughter.

Hero looked at him with surprise. 'I don't think so,' she said. She made no protest when Mr. Carmichael took the book away from her and restored it to its position on the shelf.

'You don't want that!' he said, very sure of himself. 'You'd never plough through it! If you want something to read, choose yourself a few paperbacks and, if you promise to agree to an early wedding, I'll pay for them.'

'I don't think I want anything,' Hero muttered.

'Meaning you're not going to play?'

'I don't like being hurried when I choose the books I want to read. It takes me ages to make up my mind.' She cast him a surreptitious look to see how he was reacting to this confession. 'I don't want to keep you waiting.'

'Then let's go and I'll feed you instead,' he said.

'You don't have to,' she said. 'I can go ages between meals - like a camel. If you'd rather walk—'

'I don't get offered cups of tea in shops!' The old-fashioned look that accompanied the remark made her laugh.

'I don't usually either,' she confided, 'but they're always nice to me in here.'

'You must be a good customer.'

'I suppose so,' she acknowledged. 'There's not all that much to do on the farm except read, and ride, and that sort of thing.'

He took her arm, opening the door for her, and bowing with a grin to the intrigued assistants in the shop. Hero tried to step away from him once they were safely out on the pavement, but he tightened his grasp, smiling at her with a look of mischief in his eyes.

'You won't find it easy to get away from me now, Miss Kaufman.'

She thought that she had already discovered that. She was conscious of his touch on her arm.

'Where are we going?' she asked.

'Where would you like to go? The New Stanley's Thom Tree cafe?'

She nodded. What did it matter after all? She knew now that she would never raise her courage sufficiently to make it clear to him that she was not going to marry him, whatever the advantages to herself. When he had torn up her letter, he had tom up her one route of escape. She just couldn't look him in the face and tell him. He would laugh at her for a simpleton and dismiss her objections as foolish nonsense and she would be in exactly the same position as she was now.