Home is Goodbye (21 page)

‘And he wouldn’t know a Paris model if he saw one,’ Sara put i
n
slyly.

Julia turned round quickly and looked at her.

‘Ouch!’ she said, and grinned suddenly. ‘I’m off now. Be happy! Oh, and tell Matt to buy you a ring before you meet the rest of the family, will you?’

When she was gone, Sara snapped off the light and lay back against the pillows. Poor Julia! She wondered if she had been very much in love with Matt, but honesty compelled her to admit that she didn’t think it had gone very deep with the other girl. She was sorry for her having to leave Kwaheri and sorry for her that she couldn’t marry the man she wanted.

I wonder if I seem as odd to her as she seems to me, she thought. Julia had certainly played with fire and it looked as though she had been burned. Sara hoped that she was going to be happy. Tonight she wanted everyone to be happy, for she had an inkling, right at the back of her mind, that she and Matt were going to be happier than two people had ever been before.

‘Julia has gone!’

Matt stood gazing out of the window, his eyes on some
f
ar-off spot, not seeing, but not liking to turn round either. He made his announcement diffidently, as though Sara wouldn’t like the fact.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘Do you mind very much?’

‘I?’ He turned round then. ‘Why should I? I don’t want her to make a fool of herself, that’s all.’

Sara searched his face. ‘Sure?’ she asked. It was the last doubt lingering in her mind and she wanted it laid once and for all.

‘Quite sure!’ He looked puzzled. ‘How did you know?’ he asked.

‘She came in to say goodbye last night.’

‘Then she had no right to! Couldn’t she see you were exhausted?’ He came over to the chair where she was sitting and turned her hands up for his inspection. ‘Are they sore?’ he asked.

‘Not very.’ He prodded gently and she winced.
‘
Don’t!’ she begged him. ‘I like you to hold them, but that hurts!’

He looked amused. ‘Tell me about Julia,’ he suggested.

‘She’s going to marry someone called Edgar. She was worried about it, because she didn’t think the family liked him, that’s all.’

‘Is it?’ He smiled at her. ‘I thought there was a little bit more to it than that. Am I right?’

‘You might be,’ she admitted reluctantly. ‘But she’s gone now. She left you a message—’ She looked up at him bravely. ‘She said you ought to give me a ring before you introduced me to the rest of the family!’

His eyes crinkled up with amusement. ‘I thought you weren’t going to marry me,’ he teased her.

She looked down at that. What say she wasn’t right? What say he didn’t really love her after all?

‘I thought so too,’ she said at last. ‘You see, Matt, I
— I
found I couldn’t marry a man who didn’t love me as much as I loved him.’

‘And what made you think that I didn’t?’ he demanded.

She looked up at him then, with laughter in her eyes. ‘You never
told
me,’ she said. ‘How could I be expected to know? You
liked
me; you found it difficult to be angry with me; and your female cousins were arriving
en
masse
!
How
could
I have known?’

‘
It was difficult then,’ he explained.
‘
You were so upset that I hadn’t sent you that note and I felt such a brute. Laura had made her plans so obvious that I thought you were avoiding me and, anyway, I didn’t think you were in love with me then, so I thought I’d try and persuade you for some other reason.’

‘
You nearly broke my heart,’ she told him.

‘But
everyone
knew I was in love with you!’ he exclaimed. ‘Mother did, Cengupta, James and Felicity, even Nurse Lucy was looking slyly at me!’

‘
But
I
didn’t kn
o
w! I thought everyone was wrong — I thought you were in love with someone else.
’

‘So you said last night,’ he said grimly.

‘But I was wrong?’

He nodded. ‘When I saw you with that blue sari Kamala gave you I could have eaten you!’ he told her. He slipped his arms about her and drew her close to
him.
‘And now,’ he threatened, ‘now I am going to eat you!’

‘I was going down to Dar-es-Salaam,’ she told him. ‘I should have gone if your mother hadn’t telephoned.’ She suddenly sat up very straight. ‘Oh, Matt!’ she
exclaimed.
‘How’s the baby?’

‘It’s fine.’ He pulled her close again just as the door opened. ‘Now who is it?’ he demanded. ‘The trouble with
this place is that one can never be alone! What do you want?’ he asked of the frightened African face that appeared in the doorway. ‘Well?’

The African gazed at him in horror.

‘
Kwaheri
,
bwana,’ he stuttered, and hurried away again.

‘
Kwaheri
,’
Matt replied in muf
fl
ed tones. He couldn’t do any better. He was too busy kissing Sara.