Mayenga Farm (8 page)

"My wife wouldn’t need to work!" he said.

"Her parents are ignorant of your existence. They are determined that she shall marry a man of substance, who can provide her with the lovely clothes and easy way of living to which she's accustomed. Surely you can see their viewpoint?"

"Jackie’s a free spirit. She wouldn’t be bound by such antiquated nonsense. I'm a good journalist — someday I hope to produce a best-selling novel. Good heavens, what do they expect of a man of twenty-seven who's spent five years in the army!"

Rennie forbore to reiterate that he was not even a name to the Caton parents.

Low-voiced, she stated, "You've missed out something rather important. You believe you're in love with her, but she hasn’t the same illusion about you. As a matter of fact" — the odd dryness came back into Rennie’s throat — "she’s in love with someone else."

Quietly Michael placed his fish knife and fork beside the remainder of his sole meuniere. He swallowed hard on the last mouthful and gulped the rest of his wine. Not daring to look at him, Rennie drew figures on the tablecloth with her fingernail. This was almost worse than she had anticipated.

In an adjoining room a band was playing La Paloma, and some of the early diners were already passing through the elegant archway and preparing to dance. Rennie watched them through a haze, and wondered if Michael would ever speak again.

"I'm sorry," Rennie whispered.

"Have your dinner," he answered miserably. "You might as

well — it'll have to be paid for."

But Rennie couldn't eat. She was angry with Jackie for making this nice young man so wretched, and conscious of a private, inexplicable ache.

"If you like." she said quietly, "we'll go now."

"Yes." He beckoned for the bill. "You can tell Jackie that I ... do realize how it is, that I wish her to be happy. I'll get away to Johannesburg tomorrow."

He stood aside to let her pass, and followed her to the door. The eight o'clock dinners were crowding in, and Rennie drew back while the laughing, noisy couples scattered. A group of four hesitated nearby.

A man said, "Johannes! Did you reserve my table?" Rennie's heart turned, and for an instant her whole body ceased to function. Kent, dark and incredibly handsome in a white dinner jacket, was addressing the head waiter. With him were another man, Adela Caton, and brilliant, scarlet-sheathed, fur-caped Jacqueline.

Michael said thickly, "Ye gods! She's glorious."

Before Rennie could budge, Kent's head had swerved and he saw her. After a blank second he bowed and took the pace that divided them.

"My young neighbor," he observed conversationally. "How pleasant. So you do dine out occasionally?"

Adela drawled, "Good evening, Rennie."

And here was Jackie, her smile bright as a diamond, her glance immovably on Rennie. "Hello, darling. How lovely to see you in town."

Kent introduced the other man, and Rennie, her nerves fluttering, did the same with Michael Rogers.

"A friend from England," she tacked on, "He arrived only today."

"Today?" The black brows lifted a fraction. "You lost no time in getting together. Have you had dinner?"

"Thank you, yes. We're just going. My father expects me home soon."

"A pity. Perhaps you'll both come over to Elands Ridge one evening next week?"

Kent's tone was baffling, meant she thought, to put distance between them. But the moment was too fraught with mixed agonies for Rennie to stop and analyze inflictions and hidden

stabs. Michael still stood as though turned to stone.

"Don’t you patronize the Pinetree anymore?" she desperately inquired.

"The Pinetree," Kent kindly explained, "is under repair. Much to Jacqueline’s annoyance the excessive dryness has dangerously cracked the ceiling of the ballroom. So we have come here ... to eat and fill the hours till midnight with dancing."

Kent detested dancing . . . except with Jackie. Rennie managed a cheerful smile.

"We’ll go now. Coming, Michael?"

Three minutes later they were out in the cool, dark night, walking together through a channel of fatal quietude.

CHAPTER SIX "IS he the man?" Michael asked at last.

She nodded soberly. "Perhaps it’s as well that you saw them together."

"But she's even more adorable than I imagined," he exclaimed. "I couldn’t believe it. I’m not going to Johannesburg, Rennie. I’m throwing my job and staying here. There’s sure to be something I can do to make a living, and I’m not completely broke."

"It won’t do you any good," said Rennie despondently. "She didn’t look at you. You'll only wound yourself if you hang on, hoping."

"She must have money. Isn’t that right?"

"Not only money____"

"While she’s here," he interrupted moodily, "I’m staying."

"Pass up your career for a dream?" she said gently.

"Jackie hasn’t been a dream with me. She’s been beside me for a long time now. I returned to England bent on marrying her. Well, maybe I'll have her yet."

"How?"

"I don't know. Tonight I can’t think clearly." They had reached his hotel and she had stopped beside the car. "When may I see you again, Rennie?"

"I seldom come to town except for supplies, but you can find your way out to Mayenga. Do you ride?"

"I'll try anything . . . donkey, camel, ox, or plain horse."

"There’s a riding school at the back of the town. Borrow a hack and come whenever you like." She smiled into the hazel eyes, which were not far above her own. "Promise you won’t go back to

that club?"

"I won't," he said. "I've no desire to, after a blow like that. My strongest inclination at the moment is to repair to my bedroom with a bottle or two of Scotch. I've never yet got really cock-eyed."

She laughed, and swung open the car door. "That's one way of bearing it, but the effects aren't lasting. Start cooking up a plot for that novel, and when you're stuck, come and see my father. He’s something of a literary man, too. Good night."

Rennie was well over the bridge and racketing along the Mayenga trail when she remembered that Jackie’s pearls were still in her bag. She would hand them to Michael next time they met She felt there was pretty sure to be a next time.

Next morning she gave her father a few details about Michael Rogers, shirring over Jackie’s connection with the young journalist. Without having to lie she made it appear as though Michael was subjugated by the sunny climate and willing to work in Gravenburg, at least for a time. The fact that the young man was a writer pushed other details about him into the background.

"A novel, eh?" said Adrian, rubbing his hands. I’m glad you invited him to Mayenga, Rennie. We should have some interesting chats."

Rennie went off to the dairy thinking how impossibly tranquil the days had seemed before the advent of Jackie Caton.

Mid-morning she came back for a cup of tea, and, discovering that Adrian had gone to town and guessing that he would probably lunch with Mr. Morgan, the bookseller, she packed some biscuits and fruit and set out on Paddy for the river.

Strictly speaking, she was pleasure-bound, though her father always insisted that anything to adorn the house or garden was equally as necessary as the mealies in the fields. He averred that it was not only a pleasure but a downright duty to have as much prettiness and aesthetic beauty about one as one could afford. Still, in Rennie’s own judgment, a trip up-river to gather ferns and rock plants was definitely non-productive. But this was, after all, the week-end, and she was much in need of recreation and solitude.

It must be all of a year since she and her father had camped for a night in those spicy-smelling woods across the river. They had come upon the primitive bridge composed of logs and laced vines constructed many years ago by some unsung pioneer, left the car in the bush and carried their equipment and supplies over the river and into the forest. The following morning they had trekked between the reddish twisted trunks, emerged from the forest, and reached a corner of paradise. Rennie meant to find that spot again, but this time on Paddy’s back. That way it would not take so long.

Just as unexpectedly as before, she found the bridge, and Paddy warily trod the swaying logs, letting out more than one scared whinny before pawing the hard ground on the farther bank.

Rennie dismounted. There was an arrested look about this place, as though time and locality were suspended in space. Trees pressed in, doves cooing in their tops, and the sharp chatter of monkeys came from the lower branches. In such a haven one might witness any of nature’s miracles without astonishment.

Rennie ate an apple, a banana, and a few biscuits, and scolded herself for bringing nothing to drink. The sound of Paddy placidly lapping at the Lamu was no help, and soon she was in the saddle again, weaving unerringly towards the ridge of rocks beyond the forest.

She had come out of the trees and was shading her eyes to take her bearings when a native galloped up, astride a donkey. From a distance of a dozen yards he clicked a long sentence at her. In order that he should not consider this effort wasted, Rennie assumed an expression of exaggerated bewilderment. The boy tried again, with gestures but hardly more intelligibly, and Rennie had to shrug and smile non-comprehension.

The donkey was whipped round, bare heels dug its flanks, and both disappeared with unbelievable and undignified speed into the trees. Rennie supposed that the boy had been begging, but as she had nothing to give their lack of means of communication mattered hardly at all.

At the foot of the rocks she let Paddy roam, and began to clamber up to the high ledge where rock-daisies and pinks grew in warm-toned profusion. Drawing herself on to the shelf, the musky scent of crushed myrtle in her nostrils, she soaked in the scene it had hidden.

Precipitately, an almost complete circle of jagged stone outcrop dropped about seventy feet, cradling a perfect natural rock garden which dipped to a green satin lake. Scarcely a ripple disturbed the water. The whole scene was enveloped in a strange, sub-tropical hush.

Presently, Rennie crawled over the ledge and lowered herself from boulder to boulder. In a cleft she discovered a plant with long wide rubbery leaves, one of which she snicked clean at soil level with the clasp-knife she had brought. Upon this cool, succulent bed she laid the small portions of root cut neatly from each of the flowering balsams. Carefully she raked back the soil where the roots had been exposed, and firmed it with the flat of her hand.

• It was a tender, absorbing task, full of small del
  
• "There’s nothing you can tell me that I haven’t th
  
• On Monday they slipped back into the new leisurely
  

It was a tender, absorbing task, full of small delights. When a stone rattled down the rocks she did not at once look up, but it was impossible to ignore the quick leaps with which Kent landed level with her.

A breeze teased the tawny hair at her temples and lifted the soft silk collar of her shirt. The grey eyes she raised to him were tinged with the mystic green of the water; her cheeks were flushed with bending, her lips red and slightly parted, as though eager to impart a sweet secret.

His glance roved her face, and the ironic twist at his mouth gradually smoothed out. Whatever mockery he was on the point of uttering he left unspoken. He looked down at the tiny blue starflowers held so gently in her hands, and back to the graceful curve of her cheek. "Pretty," he murmured. "So you’re the trespasser."

"Am I?"

"The police-boy doesn’t know you, so he came to me. He has to patrol the woods in case of fire. He saw in you a potential incendiarist."

"Are they yours — those trees?"

"Yes. I haven't got round to clearing them yet."

"Clearing them. Oh!"

"Would you rather I left them as they are?"

"I haven't the right. . . . "

"Don't hedge. Would you?"

"Well, I ... no, I wouldn’t."

"Why?" he persisted.

She hesitated. "Because . . . well, you see. . ."

"Because," he said for her, "now that you know the forest is on my land you'll take good care never to ride through it again. Am I right?"

Her bent head answered him.

"Damn your stubbornness! One of these days, my child, I'll shock you out of it."

She had to smile at the angry humor in his tone.

"You jump on me before I have a chance to speak. One doesn’t go tramping over other people’s property without

permission, not in England, anyway. Where’s your boundary?"

He nodded towards the opposite rim of rocks. "About half a mile up."

Involuntarily, Rennie’s hand went out to indicate the still lake and the immense flowered bowl in which they stood. Blue petals showered from her fingers.

"Then this, too, belongs to you?"

"It happens, quite by an accident of measurement, to be included with the plantation," he said crisply. "Does the fact lessen your joy in the place? Would you like to hurl the plant-cuttings back at me?" He leaned towards her, his voice cool and deliberate. "If you do, little one, I'll make you wish to heaven you hadn’t."

He meant it, too; Rennie was aware of that. She laughed a little shyly and surveyed the lake.

"Can you bathe in it?"

"Not without risk of bilharzia or some other fever. One of these days I’ll have it cleaned out and made safe for bathing, and some convenient steps could be hacked out of the rocks. I’ll shove up a thatched summer-house near the woods and camp here at weekends. Do you like camping?"

"My father and I spent a night back there once — before you came. It was heavenly. I regretted afterwards that we didn't climb those rocks on the other side of the lake to see what lay beyond."

Kent said, "It’s worth the bother. We’ll climb them now."

"But it’s Saturday. You’re playing polo."

"Not till five," he replied carelessly. "Follow me round to that clump of karri. Leave the plants. We'll collect them on the way back.

It took twenty minutes to scale the ridge, Kent finding the footholds and Rennie obediently extending a hand to be helped whenever he demanded it. For the final few yards he leaned down, grasped her firmly beneath the armpits and unceremoniously hauled her to the flat summit of the outcrop. She had to get her breath before attempting to take in the vista which lay below.