The House of the Scissors (12 page)

It wouldn’t do, of course, she told herself over and over again. But she was too tired to do anything about it. She felt funny in the head and she was scared that he would leave her alone at the hospital, unable to make herself understood by anyone, if she made a fuss.

“Yes, Lucien.” Her ears were singing and she felt terribly hot. And then she began to shiver and, once she had started, she couldn’t stop. “I’d like that,” she said.

CHAPTER
EIGHT

HILARY sat on the end of the bed, swinging her legs to and fro as she thoughtfully regarded the occupant Arab pulled herself farther up the bed and frowned.

“I feel awful!” she announced.

“You look awful,” Hilary told her. “One always does with malaria. Lucien says you ought to know better at your age than to open the netting windows of your room. It couldn’t make anything any cooler. And why weren’t you taking paludrin?”

Arab looked suitably chastened. “I forgot,” she admitted. “And I don’t mind saying that if the air-conditioning broke down in Lucien’s room, I bet he’d open everything he could too!”

“Lucien says you think in a typically female way. In fact that you hardly think at all!”

Arab gave her a sulky look. “I don’t want to hear what Lucien says!”

Hilary grinned, rolling her eyes with unwonted drama. “He was simply
furious
,” she giggled. “Ayah actually
ran
when she was getting your room ready!”

Arab’s head fell back against her pillows. The singing in her ears was back again and her head ached. “Must you swing your legs like that?” she complained.

“Sorry,” said Hilary. She pushed herself farther on to the bed with a magnificent disregard for Arab’s broken ankle. “Lucien says,” she went on happily, “that you probably had fever deliberately so that you wouldn’t have to go home. Did you, Arab? I mean, you could hardly have enticed a tame mosquito into your room, could you?”

“Certainly not!” Arab said shortly.

“That’s what I thought,” Hilary said, glad to have her opinion confirmed. “I think he was joking. He looked—well, you know how he looks when he’s got the better of one.”

Arab did indeed. “Has Sammy been?” she asked.

Hilary shook her head. “But you don’t have to worry, Arab. Lucien says he’ll attend to him. You have to concentrate on getting better.”

The tears slipped easily between Arab’s eyelids. Oh no, she thought, I can’t be crying again! She sniffed, searching for a handkerchief, but there was none. This was awful, she thought. She sniffed again, aware of Hilary’s patient sigh and feeling thoroughly shamed by her own weakness.

“I can’t leave everything to Lucien!” she exclaimed, wildly tossing the pillows about in a more determined search for a handkerchief.

Hilary uttered a startled gasp and Arab became aware of a handkerchief being held out to her. She snatched at it and blew her nose violently, making her head ache worse than ever.

“What can’t you leave to me?” Lucien asked her. She raised defiant eyes. “I feel awful!” she wailed. “And don’t tell me I look awful, because Hilary has already told me that! And don’t tell me that it’s all my own fault, because that message has already been relayed to me as well!”

Hilary had the grace to look ashamed. “I didn’t say it was
actually
your own fault. I said Lucien had said you ought to know better—”

Lucien looked down at his niece. “This is the time for you to make a graceful exit,” he told her.

“No!” Arab exclaimed. “Hilary, don’t go!” But she was too late; the little girl, taking one look at her uncle’s determined expression, had already gone.

Arab pulled the sheet up to her chin and wished that Lucien would go too. She didn’t have to look at him to see the mocking expression on his face. She clutched his handkerchief in a little ball in one fist, hoping vainly that her moment of tears was over.

“I want to go back to the hotel!”

“Having made such a bird’s nest of your bed, I’m not surprised,” Lucien observed.

“I was looking for a handkerchief.”

He smiled. “Don’t you ever have one?”

“S-sometimes.” She settled the sheet more firmly about her. “Paper handkerchiefs are much more hygienic.”

“Undoubtedly. Shall I get Jill to buy you some when she brings your things over?”

Arab closed her eyes. “Jill can’t drive,” she said. She opened her eyes again, peering up at him cautiously. “Whose nightie have I got on? Sandra’s?”

“Sandra’s would be a bit on the big side for you,” he drawled. “That one belongs to Ruth. Any objections?”

“No.” She blushed. “Is Sandra back from Mombasa?”

“I expect so. Do you want her to come and see you?”

Arab shook her head. “I—I didn’t hear her arrive,” she muttered. “I expected to, because I can hear everyone else coming up and down the stairs.”

“Arabella Burnett!” he mocked her. “Contrary to any illusions you may have of me, Sandra does not live with me, in any sense of the word!”

“Oh.” Her ears buzzed madly. “I thought she was staying with you,” she tried to explain. “After all, she is a kind of relation, isn’t she?”

“No, she is not.”

“But she is!” Arab objected perversely. “She’s your sister’s sister-in-law.”

Lucien grunted. “Hardly close enough for us to live under the same roof and expect to get away with it! Malindi is a hotbed of gossip, and Sandra is too nice a person not to care what’s said about her.”

Arab digested this in silence. She came to the conclusion that she didn’t agree with him. Sandra, she thought, would be happy to be talked about if her name were being linked with Lucien’s, especially if it were to lead to a closer relationship. Then another thought struck her. Her eyes widened and she stared up at him. “But
I
’
m
staying here!”

“So you are!”

“But—but, Lucien—”

His laughter disconcerted her. “Shall I fix your pillows for you?” he offered solicitously.

“No! I want to go back to the hotel. Besides,” she added, “I like my pillows this way!”

He sat down on the edge of the bed. “How’s the ankle?” he asked in quite different, almost businesslike tones.

“It aches, but it’s not too bad.” She wished the buzzing in her ears would stop. If she felt better, it would be easier to make up her mind what to do, instead of getting in a dither.
She had to go back to the hotel
! “I’m awfully sorry,” she said aloud, “but I’m afraid I’m going to be sick!”

Lucien was galvanised into action. “Ayah!” he roared. Arab gulped helplessly. “
Ayah
!” he shouted again.

The African woman waddled into the room, grasping her bulky frame somewhere round her middle. When she saw Arab’s face, she bowed her head with laughter, putting her hands up to hide her broad smile.

“That man not going to hurt you,” she said soothingly. “Come on, Ayah is here. Little while and you feel better! I put this bed to rights and then you sleep.” She frowned at Lucien. “Can’t you see that girl is sick?” she demanded. “Why you come in here and frighten her?”

Lucien eyed Arab’s face suspiciously. “
I
frighten
her?”
he exclaimed. “Don’t you believe it! She’s not frightened of me. She’s frightened of herself and—”

“Go away!” Arab moaned.

He bent down and kissed her softly on the lips “Believe me,” he said, “when I want to frighten you, you’ll stay frightened! But you have nothing to be afraid of—at the moment. So you can stop looking like a half-hatched chick and pretty yourself up to receive the doctor. If you want
me,
you can send for me, otherwise I’ll wait until you feel more yourself. All right?”

“No, it’s not all right! I can’t stay here! I want to
go
back to the hotel!”

This final effort was almost too much for Arab. She thought perhaps she really was going to be sick. Her whole body ached and itched with sweat, and yet she was cold and
she
was starting to shiver again.

“Lucien,” she whispered, “please don’t go yet. It’s coming back again and I don’t know what to do!”

He uttered a series of abrupt commands to Ayah, while he himself raised her in the bed, pulling her pillows into place. “Poor little street arab,” he said in a voice so full of amused affection that she was afraid she was going to cry again.

“I don’t know what’s the matter with me!” she berated herself.

“Don’t you? Darling, I wish you wouldn’t worry yourself now. Isn’t a dose of malaria and a broken ankle enough to be going on with?”

“But I don’t want to be a nuisance to you—Sandra might not understand that—that I’m ill. Nor will Jill She doesn’t think I have any sense at all!”

“Nor have you!” He put a finger across her mouth to prevent her retort. “Jill is very fond of you and I won’t hear a word against her. As a matter of fact, she’s downstairs now. Shall I ask her to stay the night?”

Arab’s face cleared as if by magic. “Oh yes!” she exclaimed. “Would you mind, Lucien? It would make everything all right!”

“
Everything
?” The sardonic expression in his eyes confused her. She began to shiver in earnest and she clenched her teeth together. His concern for her was warming and a wave of weariness swept over her as she tried to concentrate on what he was saying to her. Something about Ayah changing her nightie and her sheets and making her more comfortable. But she didn’t seriously expect to be comfortable ever again. The prickling heat down her back and under her arms made her fractious, and her ankle ached.

Then, almost before she was aware, she was magically back
between
dry sheets and her hot pillows were cool and fresh. With a sigh of content, she turned over on her side and slept.

When she woke, the fever had gone away and she was pleasantly cool all over. She was also very weak, as she discovered when she tried to ease herself against her pillows. It was only then that she became aware of Sandra Dark sitting in the easy chair facing her.

“Have—have you been here long?” she asked in a polite voice.

“It’s seemed like days, but in actual fact I guess it’s only a couple of hours,” Sandra answered. “I thought you were never going to wake up!”

“I’m sorry,” Arab said.

Sandra shrugged. “Why? You could probably do with it. Lucien said you were feeling lousy last night—”

“Last night?”

Sandra laughed, managing not to crease her face despite what seemed to be genuine amusement. “That’s right! This is Monday morning.” She admired her immaculately enamelled nails without looking at Arab. “That’s what I’m doing here,” she said.

Arab blinked. She watched the older woman cautiously, wondering what it was that she wanted. Sandra glanced up from her nails and smiled briefly.

“I’m not going to pretend that I like asking you this,” she went on. “I don’t. But you seem to have a way with you as far as the people you work with are concerned. Sammy would just love to use me, but for some reason he seemed to think you ought to be consulted, or something.”

“I see,” said Arab.

“I thought you might. Though it can’t matter to you either way! I want your job, Miss Burnett, and I intend to have it!”

Arab fiddled idly with the edge of her sheet. “Oh?” she murmured.

“It’s just what I need at this moment. I threw up my job in Nairobi. It was quite impossible to get anyone to see sense about anything there. One would think that there weren’t any Europeans left to buy any clothes, to hear them talk! And do you see me selling anything but what might be a Paris model, if you didn’t look too closely, of course?”

Arab looked at her visitor with a certain amusement. “These are not Paris models, Miss Dark. They’re strictly off-the-peg models for the mass market. Sammy does the brochures for them and it was he who thought a glamorous background would be a good selling point. The magazines use them, so why not us?”

Sandra lent forward in her chair, her eyes shining. “But Sammy does other stuff—I’ve looked him up. This would only be the beginning!”

“A lot of models have thought the same!” Arab warned her.

“Including you?”

“Including me,” Arab admitted. “I don’t aspire to the heights of the profession, or anything like that, but I want to do a bit better than I have so far. I thought Sammy would help me do that. I didn’t know then that I was only filling in for someone else.”

“That’s what he told me,” Sandra agreed. Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Now I’m not so sure. He was in quite a way when he heard about your ankle. It made me wonder if you weren’t more important to him than I’d thought.”

The enquiry in her voice made Arab wince. “Nobody is important to Sammy,” she said.

“My dear,” Sandra drawled, “he’s a man, isn’t he? Or didn’t it occur to you to play that particular trump?”

Arab flushed with embarrassment. “I—I—” she stammered.

“Oh, come on! You’re not so backward when it comes to Lucien!” Sandra exclaimed. “I suppose you think it’s different because you’re in love with him! Well, I don’t mind admitting that I’m in love with him too, and can have him any time I choose, but that won’t stop me stringing Sammy along.” She laughed softly. “Have I shocked you? How deliciously young you are, my dear! But it puts you at rather a disadvantage as far as Lucien is concerned, doesn’t it? I’m afraid he’ll always see you as Hilary’s little friend!”

“I don’t think that’s any business of yours!” Arab declared. She longed to escape from this whole distasteful conversation, but there was no way out. She was tethered to her bed by her ankle and the weakness that was the aftermath of fever. She had never realised before how very vulnerable one was in bed in the face of an unwelcome visitor and she cast Sandra a resentful look, wondering if she could tell her that she wanted to visit the bathroom and would need Ayah’s help to get there.