Mayenga Farm (14 page)

There was a short, rather brittle silence. Grateful for the Singapore which, whatever it may have contained, had infused her with a modicum of Dutch courage, Rennie resolutely refused to dissect Kent's last statement. Later, when she was alone, conjecture about Kent and Jackie would be unavoidable, but she was not going to spoil these hours with him.

Matter-of-factly he ended the pause.

"If I were you I'd start harvesting the maize at once, before any harm can come to it, and stack it loosely in the yard to finish off. It won't grow anymore."

"We thought of hand-picking straight into sacks to avoid waste, so we can't begin till the cobs are absolutely ripe. We've stripped the cowpeas and the boys are cropping the soya beans now."

"I can't see them from my land. How are they yielding?"

"Not too badly, but the cows will be disgusted with the soya hay. Most of the leaves have dropped."

"Insufficient fertilizer — they’re a greedy crop. The soil ought to be analyzed so that you know where you stand for next season." He reached out and laid a hard brown hand over hers as it rested on the wall. "Rennie, promise me something."

The hand beneath his contracted, and turned hot "What?"

"You're trying to get through without dragging Adrian away from that blamed novel. Oh, yes, you are — I’m not blind. If the book means such a lot to you to let the pair of them go ahead and complete it. But you’re tackling so much that I can see you heading for a collapse if you go on bottling up your problems, or trying to handle them with too little labor and equipment. Promise that you’ll let me know if you’re in the least trouble."

"But, Kent. . . ." She tried to withdraw her fingers but he held them fast. She laughed unsteadily. "You know how it is with farming. There are dozens of worries every day but somehow they smooth themselves out."

"No quibbling. Promise."

"Very well. But if ... if you’re coming over sometimes you’ll see for yourself."

"I doubt it. You dissemble too well."

The door which Kent had closed behind them was suddenly thrust wide. Music roared above the gay din, and several young folk came out to cool off and venture a little way through the grass and thickets.

Kent straightened to let Rennie pass in front of him and enter the ballroom. Just inside the door sat Adrian with several of the older men. As his eyes found Rennie they lost their look of dreamy content, and became more alive. He tapped her wrist.

"Well, my dear, so Kent’s annexed you. That boy who parted us has been combing the crowds for you. He said you agreed to dance with him. Are you having fun?"

"Lots, darling. Hello, Mr. Morgan. How are you?" as the chuckling old man leaned forward to be noticed. "It’s a wonderful party."

"How much have you seen of it?" he teased. "Kent’s a monopolist. He has a habit of sticking to one woman all the evening. I've noticed it before, at the Pinetree."

"It saves a lot of bother," Kent said lazily. "I object to making repetitive small talk with a dozen young women I might never

meet again."

"Just think what you might be missing! Your fate may be drifting round in this very club tonight, and you’re passing up the chance of meeting her."

"Fortunate for us both, perhaps," Kent answered. "I don’t see Mrs. Morgan anywhere about."

The old man laughed gustily. "I’m not so smug a bachelor as you young fellows. If I could find a pretty woman my side of fifty I'd marry her quick."

"You've been working that line for the last twenty years, you old humbug."

"Have I?" Mr. Morgan sobered a little. "Well, let it be a lesson to you, Kent." He smiled up at Rennie, his bushy white brows twitching. "Take him in hand and tame him. Tear his heart a bit. He’ll want to strangle you for it, but it’ll do you both good."

Kent was grinning at the tide of color which had swept up from her neck.

"Rennie doesn’t play those games — do you, little one?" he jibed softly, "She wouldn’t hurt me unless I hurt her first."

Which was so exactly right that Rennie could find nothing to say. Unwittingly, Adrian helped her out by waving a hand at someone behind her. Within two minutes she was dancing with the man in naval uniform who had accompanied her to the launch, and after that she had a fruit drink with him and was drawn into some games. When she had threaded her way back to Adrian, Kent was still nearby, discussing a recent sale of polo ponies with a portly ex-judge.

Rennie took the gilt chair beside her father’s.

"I’m glad we came," he said. "This is different from anything we’ve ever done before. No starched shirts — so friendly. You see the man talking to Kent?"

"The fat one?"

"He has a private library of three thousand volumes, quite a famous one, I believe. He invited me to look them over, and I shall do so as soon as my notes for Michael's book are ready. He also asked me to address the local Rotary Club, but I had to turn it down."

"Oh, but why? You’d have loved it."

"All in good time, Rennie. My streak of showmanship tells me to wait till the lecture tour is what you moderns term „in the bag'." He gave her the familiar smile. "The Gravenburg Rotarians will have infinitely more reverence for a touring lecturer from England than for a scribbling, scratching maize farmer. The world has little respect for failures. It has occurred to me, my dear, that we’d be happier without the weight of Mayenga on our shoulders."

"Give up Mayenga! Oh, no."

"It would simplify matters," he said equably. "And be less costly than putting in a manager while we’re away, besides eliminating a heap of worry. However, that’s still in the future. We’ll defer decision till the harvest is over. It won’t be so long now."

Kent had swivelled to place himself on the other side of Adrian.

"I'm leaving soon. Are you coming?"

"I would like another chat with the judge," said Adrian. "But Rennie will be getting tired. . . ."

"Exactly what you were intended to say," Kent broke in. "Come along, Rennie. I'll take you home and your father can follow when he’s through with the judge."

She got up, exchanged smiles with her father, and quivered at Kent’s inflexible grip on her elbow. Then they were out in a night gone cool and inexpressibly sweet, walking down the path between the boats and out on to the embankment, where the cars were parked, and native chauffeurs sat about talking and smoking coarse-smelling tobacco.

"Hadn’t you a wrap or a bag?" Kent asked.

"My bag," she exclaimed. "I didn’t wear a coat, but I did bring my small evening purse — it’s black silk with my initial in one corner. Where can I have left it?"

He stood regarding her quizzically in the darkness.

"Think back, child. When did you last powder your nose?"

"I haven't powdered it. It must be horribly shiny." Instinctively her forefinger touched the tip.

"The bag," he gently reminded her. "Did you have the thing when we danced?"

"I’m sure I didn’t. I’m so unused to toting a handbag these days. In fact, I haven’t opened it, except to pop a hanky in the flap since..."

Since when? The night she had first met Michael, wasn’t it?

"I’ve a horrid feeling," she ended, "that I left it in the launch."

"If so, it’s simple. She’ll still be tied up at the landing-stage. We can slip along and see."

The water slapped peacefully at the jetty piles, rippling ink with stars in its depths. A couple of native police boys in a patrolling boat were chanting, one high-pitched, the other basso profundo; a weird combination which, at this hour and with the faint odor of frangipani and wattle in the nostrils, plucked at the nerves.

When they reached the Silver Streak, Kent said, "I'll drop down into the boat and strike a match. The bag should be near where you sat."

She watched him as he moved the camp-stool and rasped one match after another.

"It’s here," he said suddenly. "Seems to have burst open and scattered your belongings. Would you rather come and collect them yourself?"

"No, there can't be much. Will you bring them for me?" "I

will."

He bunched the lot in one hand, stepped on to the side of the boat and took a leap. Elaborately, he presented her with the empty bag.

"Hold it open and I'll tip the goods in. One powder compact. Right?"

"Right," she laughingly affirmed.

"One lipstick, a tiny box that might contain snuff." "Rouge!"

" ... a lace handkerchief, two dear little safety-pins, bless ’em, and a tiny perfume container." His closed fist still hovering above the bag, he winked down at her. "Is that the lot?"

She smiled, keyed up by his mood, and brushed her fingertips over the big knuckles.

"Is it another hanky?"

"No."

"Money?"

"No."

"Then," she shook her head, "I'm stumped."

His hand opened. "Your pearls, idiot."

Pearls, she echoed blankly. And then, through some scurvy trick of human nature, she trembled violently "They’re . . . Michael’s."

"Michael’s?"

His voice revealed nothing, and it was too dark to read his expression, but as they walked to the car she was keenly conscious of a change in him.

"So Michael wears pearls," he stated with sarcasm. "Well, well."

She felt a wild impulse to cry out the truth; that the necklace was Jackie’s; that — quite excusably, due Michael’s absorption and her own preoccupation with the farm — she had entirely forgotten Jackie’s request for it to be returned to Michael. But Jac loved Kent, and he . . . might he not be more than half in love with Jac."

A chill crept over Rennie. She must at least make him understand that the pearls were not hers and never had been; would he believe that, without further details? She thought not, and was wrenched by a cold helpless anger against Jackie, who always got what she wanted at the expense of others.

Kent put her into his car and gave her a rug, reversed and swerved away from the river towards the Gravenburg road. The black outlines of the trees sped by, and presently they were racing through the half-lit town and the northern suburbs. The car had crossed the bridge and they were within sight of the farmhouse when Kent made the conventional inquiry.

"Are you tired ?"

"A little. Thank you for everything."

"Would you like me to go in with you?"

"I think I’ll go straight to bed."

He braked, slithered out on to the track and came round in time to open the door for her.

"There seems to be plenty of lights," he said.

"Yes. Shall we see you tomorrow?"

"Probably. About mid-morning."

"Good night, Kent."

"Goodnight."

Rennie flitted up the path and into the hall, where she stayed for a moment, listening to the fading hum of the car. She heard movements in the lounge and was seized with panic; a session with Michael would be anti-climax. Hurriedly, she poked her head round the door.

"Still up, Michael? It’s me for the hay."

"Good party?"

"Splendid."

"Where’s Adrian?"

"He stayed for a while. Leave the lamps on, will you?" "Sure.

Sweet dreams, Rennie."

Rennie went into her small white bedroom and stood very still on the little blue rug beside the bed, not daring to think, or feel, or even to look at her colorless image in the mirror.

A mosquito sang past her ear and automatically she swiped at it. The window ought to be closed and the room sprayed, but

Rennie was too spent to care. She began to get ready for bed.

Directly after breakfast next morning she gave Michael the pearl necklet. He jiggled it in his palm, his mouth square with chagrin.

"It looked fine in the case when I bought it," he said, "but I suppose Kent can give her the real thing, complete with a guarantee and a diamond clasp. Tough on chaps like me, isn't it?"

Rennie nodded her sympathy.

"Strange how opposites couple up," he said musingly. "Jackie isn’t really Kent's cup of tea, and she'd make a hopeless sort of wife for a planter. She hates Africa." Rennie stared. "How can you possibly know that? She always says she adores the country."

"Does she? Maybe I'm wrong, then."

He strolled off to his desk and a few minutes later Rennie heard him whistling; actually whistling, with the returned pearls in his pocket. That was all Jacqueline Caton meant to him now.

C H A P T E R T E N DURING the following week Kent came twice to Mayenga, but neither time did he stay long, nor was his manner companionable. In a businesslike tone he talked harvesting and next year's crops. When Adrian mentioned that they hadn't any plans for new planting, Kent's dark brows pulled together, but he asked no questions. Nor did he offer suggestions as to the new rotation of crops.

Rennie rather thought he rode over merely to keep his word to her. She looked forward to his visits, however brief, but his offhandedness hurt. He was stony and incalculable. If, by chance, he was alone with her for a moment, she felt the old antagonism rise between them like an iron wall; there was no teasing now, and little sarcasm. It became a painful relief when he rode away again.

Michael was working harder than ever. On one of his afternoons in town he had beguiled a tennis partner into lending him a portable typewriter and, after lunch each day, when his brain was at its most sluggish, he pattered away at the finished chapters, and in the evening Rennie corrected and fastened them for him.

As she had anticipated, his heroine had Jackie's looks and character to begin with, and she broadened into a strong-minded but lovable middle-age. He had also introduced another young woman, modelled, Rennie rather suspected, partly on herself. A sweet, obliging person who had early cherished an unrequited love for the hero, had married late and become her husband's doormat. Good reading and ironically true to life. Michael certainly had a talent for pumping red blood into his characters, whether he happened to like them or not.

Rennie said as much to Adrian one afternoon, when he was superintending the loading of the bags of soya beans ready for town. She had been trying to persuade him indoors, out of the hot sun, by reminding him that the more he did for Michael now, the sooner he would be free to help with the maize gathering. Though privately she had no intention of letting him overtire himself with the harvesting. Without encouragement, Adrian plunged into a description of the events to be portrayed in the second half of the novel, and Rennie offered her comment about Michael's undoubted abilities.