The House of the Scissors (13 page)

“Oh, I think it is,” Sandra contradicted, looking amused.
“All
Lucien’s reactions are my business, my dear. The Darks and the Manners are meant for each other! Ruth and my brother, me and Lucien—it’s always been like that!”

Arab tried to think of some way to turn the conversation. “How did your brother die?” she asked.

“Unnecessarily,” Sandra returned. “He went up to the Northern Frontier to investigate some incident and was killed in a border skirmish. He didn’t have to go! It wasn’t as though it was his responsibility! If it had happened before Independence, I’d feel differently about it, I suppose, but why defend something that doesn’t belong to one?”

“Have you lived out here long?”

“Long? My dear girl, we’re third generation out here. Our parents were bo
rn
here and so were we. We’d never
live
anywhere else!”

Arab moved restively in her bed. “Then you don’t want to go back to England with Sammy?”

Sandra shrugged. “I might. It depends what he offers me. I wouldn’t mind going home for a bit. Lucien has a house somewhere in England. It’s been in his family since Tudor times and he likes to spend some of his time there. This time, though, he seems to have got stuck out here for longer than usual. It’s this boring book he’s writing. He spends his life researching it and talks of nothing else! I shall be glad when he’s finished it and is snapped up by some university or other for a spell of teaching.”

Arab was interested despite herself. She had never thought of Lucien as a teacher. “What does he teach?” she asked.

Sandra giggled. “The poor dear is rather limited really. He was offered a chair in African Studies somewhere in America, but he’d only just finished setting up some school or other in London. Drives him mad when it’s said that Africa has no history! But not every university seems to agree with him!”

“The African universities ought to!” Arab maintained, distressed by Sandra’s patronising tone.

“They do! But I don’t encourage him to talk in that direction. It’s time he made some real money, and that’s to be got in America. If you get the opportunity, dear, try putting that into his head, will you?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it!” Arab retorted. “I know nothing about it, and nor do you!
Besides
, I don’t think money matters much to Lucien!”

“Too, too ingenuous, aren’t you?” Sandra answered. “Money matters to us all. It will matter to Lucien all right once he’s married to me. I’m an expensive kind of person to have around!”

Depression descended on Arab like a black cloud. It was the malaria, she told herself, not believing a word of it. She knew what was the matter with her. She was jealous! Stupidly, humiliatingly jealous! Sandra was right about one thing, though, she
was
ingenuous—ingenuous enough to have believed that Lucien had been genuinely interested in her, when all the time he was planning to marry Sandra Dark. And much joy he would have of that! She couldn’t believe that anyone as fine as Lucien would fall for the dross of Sandra Dark. But he must have done. Nobody, not even Sandra, talked about marriage to a man unless they had been given some reason to do so.

“How soon do you expect to be getting married?”

Sandra spent a long moment admiring her own ankles, wiggling her feet back and forth. “We’ll wait for Ruth to come back,” she said. She stood up unhurriedly, smoothing her skirt down over her hips. “I take it, then, that you have no objection to my taking over your job?”

Arab raised a feeble smile. “Take what you like?”

Sandra raised her eyebrows and then, as hastily, lowered them again, smoothing out her brow with her fingers. “Thanks, I will,” she said. “But it’s nice to know that I have your permission.” She glanced casually at Arab’s angry face. “It may not be tactful to tell you so, my dear, but you’re not looking your best at the moment. I didn’t like the way Lucien looked at you when you were all dressed up in that golden frock at the dance, but I don’t think I have anything to worry about after all, do you?”

Arab bravely met the naked dislike in the other woman’s eyes. “Not a thing!” she muttered. “But you already know that!”

“I just wanted to make quite, quite sure,” Sandra purred. She went over to the door and opened it, a slight smile on her lips. “Oh, by the way, Lucien asked me to take your passport downstairs to him. Jill couldn’t find it among your things at the hotel.”

“It’s in my handbag,” Arab told her. “What does he want it for?”

“Don’t ask me!” Sandra exclaimed. “You’ll have to ask him—when you next see him. I hear you’ve forbidden him to come into your bedroom!”

Arab reached out for her handbag, found her passport and flipped it on to the end of the bed.

“I don’t want to see
anyone
!” she said.

But Sandra only smiled all the more. “I’ll tell him,” she promised. “I won’t forget!” She picked up the passport and went out the door, closing it behind her with a firm, decisive snap.

It was two days before Arab was allowed downstairs. Her ankle hampered all her movements, making her awkward and fractious and quite unlike her usual self. Lucien had offered to carry her down the stairs, but she had flatly refused his help, preferring to hang on to the banisters with grim determination, lowering herself slowly down, one step at a time.

“Where are you going to sit?” Hilary demanded, charging up and down the stairs beside her. “You can lean on me! I won’t let you fall—I promise I won’t!”

“Thank you,” said Arab, sounding much more grateful than she felt. “I feel so weak at the knees!”

Lucien watched her as she transferred one hand from the banisters to Hilary’s willing shoulder, pausing for an anxious moment while she regained her precarious balance.

“This is ridiculous!” he exclaimed. He pushed Hilary to one side and swept Arab up into his arms, striding down the stairs with a set look on his face. “Independence is all very well,” he added grimly, “but you don’t begin to know your own limitations, little one!”

Arab hugged herself closer to him, telling herself that if her breathing was peculiar, it had nothing to do with Lucien’s proximity.

“Don’t you dare drop me!” she cautioned him. “You told me that when you frightened me, I’d stay frightened, and I am! Mind my foot!”

“Be still!” he retorted. He smiled straight into her eyes. “And you’re not frightened! Contrary to whatever that vivid imagination of yours tells you, I don’t go round frightening young women, not even those I have designs on!”

“Hush,” she said, blushing. “Sandra will hear you!”

“Let her hear! Let the whole world hear!” He put her down carefully, keeping an arm about her to help her into the sitting room. “Are you coming out into the garden to talk to me?” he suggested.

“No,” she said. “
No
! I want to watch them working. I—I suppose they are here?”

“Yes, they’re here.” Lucien did not sound pleased and Arab’s heart sank. She wished she could explain that she would prefer to be in the garden with him, but she didn’t trust herself anywhere within his vicinity. She had only to look at him, to want to be in his arms and to feel his lips on hers. And he didn’t mean it! He was going to marry Sandra and his kisses rightfully belonged to her!

“Has Sammy said anything about my going back to England?”

The sardonic look in his eyes unsettled her. “Not to me,” he replied. “You’d better ask him about it.”

“Yes, I will. Only—” she gnawed at her lower lip—“you have my passport. What did you want it for?”

He frowned and she wished she hadn’t asked. “Oh yes,” he said, “Sandra brought it down the other day. I’d forgotten all about it.”

Then why had he asked for it? She gave him a puzzled look, but she said nothing more. Instead she began to hobble through the door, making her way out to the old ruined harem quarters, where the photography sessions were taking place. Hilary supported her with more energy than flair on one side and, on the other, she grasped at the wall, a chair, or whatever was
closer
, grunting with the exertion.

Jill saw her the moment she turned the
corner
. “Arab!” she shrieked. “I didn’t know you were coming downstairs today. My poor love, has it been very bad?”

“Well,” Arab smiled, “it hasn’t been good!”

Jill seized her arm and placed it about her neck, almost carrying her over to the nearest chair. “I suppose you’re going to stay and watch for a while?”

Arab nodded. “How’s it going?”

Jill screwed up her face warningly. “My lady has talent,” she answered. “I’m not sure what she has talent for yet, but—oh, boy!”

Arab laughed, feeling suddenly very much better. “You don’t like her!” she accused.

“Honey, do you?”

“Lucien does,” Arab said before she could stop herself. Jill whistled softly under her breath. “It’s possible Sammy will take her back to England with him,” she murmured. “He’s busy making up his mind about her—”

“But surely he knows whether she can model or not by this time?”

“Model, she certainly can,” Jill answered. “Even when I do manage to get between her and the lens, I’m definitely put in the shade! Sammy’s interest is—less exclusive, shall we say?”

“Oh,” said Arab, and then again,
“oh
!”

“
Exactly
, my pet. Give her her due, she never does or says a thing out of place, but she has poor Sammy running round in circles.” Jill looked mournful. “I’m afraid she has cut you out there, honey. Do you think you can bear it?”

“Jill!” Arab reproved her. “As a matter of fact,” she added, “I thought you liked her. I—I didn’t know that Sammy hadn’t wanted to bring me out here. Thank you for saying you would look after me. If I’d known—”

“You might have listened to Auntie, instead of thinking she was being stuffy.”

Arab chuckled. “Stuffy isn’t the first adjective that occurs to me when I think of you,” she retorted. “Seriously though, it was nice of you, Jill.”

Jill shrugged her shoulders. “Why not? I like you, honey.” She glanced at her watch. “Good lord, is that the time? I must go and change. Keep laughing, sweetie, it suits you!”

Although Arab had Hilary to talk to at intervals during the morning, she was soon bored watching the others work. For a while she interested herself in seeing how Sandra worked. She was a great deal more professional than she had supposed. Arab thought sourly that there would be far fewer retakes than there would have been if she had been the model. Jill had been right, too, when she had said that Sandra hogged the camera. She was clever about it, but one ended up looking at her and not at Jill, or the clothes they were both supposed to be showing. Sammy was ecstatic when he saw the results. “Take a rest, girls. We’ll have another go later,” he croaked at them. Then he came over and sat beside Arab.

“I’m sorry, Sammy, to have let you down,” Arab began to apologise.

“Don’t, don’t. Am I to be angry when you’ve done me such a good turn? This Sandra could be built up into something great! What d’you think of my taking her back to England? She’s a bit old for a beginner.”

“She has something—”

“Something better than youth! Duckie, that’s exactly what I’m telling myself! You see it too?”

Arab thought of Lucien, stifling her conscience with difficulty. “She’s very lovely,” she said stiffly.

Sammy flung his fat arms about her and kissed her on the cheek. “I knew you’d see it my way! Well, well, back to work!”

Arab stared after him as he hurried away from her. This was a new Sammy, she thought, one she hadn’t seen before. She felt oddly nostalgic for the old Sammy, the morose Sammy she had known for so long. It was something else that she couldn’t like Sandra for; she had no right to use people for her own advantage, even when it was someone like Sammy, who had been using people himself and throwing them away when he had finished with them for longer than Arab had been alive.

She sighed, now thoroughly bored, and wondered what Lucien was doing. She was all the more surprised, therefore, to see him coming across the old, weed-covered bathing pool.

“Had enough?” he asked her abruptly.

She bit her lip and nodded. “It’s dull having nothing to do,” she explained. “I feel utterly useless!”

His dark eyes observed her quietly. “Hilary tells me you used to work in an office?”

She was startled. “I took up modelling to escape from it,” she said dryly.

“But you do type?”

She nodded again. “Yes. I’m not bad at shorthand either.”

“Good,” said Lucien. “You can start work for me this afternoon. If you’ll come now, I’ll tell you what I want you to do.”

Arab could only wonder at her own meekness. She lumbered eagerly to her feet, excitement and interest fountaining up within her, and when he held out his hand to her, she took it gladly, hobbling along beside him with a pleased smile on her face.

CHAPTER
NI
NE

LUCIEN was a fierce taskmaster. Arab had never worked so long and so consistently at anything before. Every moment that she was not either eating or resting, she seemed to be pounding the typewriter, transcribing Lucien’s illegible scrawl into a series of neatly typed scripts of articles, one or two chapters of the book he was writing, and page upon page of closely written notes on all aspects of East African history.

There was no time for her to fret, and she was too proud to ask Sammy if he had arranged anything about her flying home. The days came and went and she applied herself wholeheartedly to the work in hand. Then one day Jill came out into the garden, where Arab was working, and threw herself down on the coarse grass beside her.

“Only two more days—think of that, Arab! I can’t wait to get back to England and home! How about you?”

Arab stopped typing. “Only two more days! Are you sure?” Her brow creased into a worried frown. “No one has said anything to me. I was waiting for Sammy to broach the subject—because of Sandra—”

“Darling, Sammy doesn’t think of anything but Sandra!”

Arab sighed. “I suppose I shall have to ask him this evening,” she said with such marked reluctance that Jill looked at her with concern.

“Worried about being left behind, love?”

“In a way,” Arab admitted. “My parents will expect me back for my birthday anyway, and I can’t stay here for ever, can I? Lucien has been more than kind, but I can’t stay here when you’ve gone, and I can’t afford to stay at the hotel. But I must say that I don’t relish a nine-hour flight with my ankle still in plaster either.”

“Doesn’t look as though you have much choice,” Jill said. “Sammy must have kept your reservation.”

“I suppose so. I shall have to go anyway. My visitor’s permit runs out then and one has to remember that this is a foreign country, though it doesn’t feel like one.”

“Not to you,” Jill answered swiftly. “You speak for yourself!”

Arab laughed. “I am! I wouldn’t dream of keeping you here another moment, unless your beloved husband were here beside you.”

“That might make me see things differently,” Jill agreed, somewhat smugly, “but I find it a bit too hot for everyday living. I shall be quite pleased to see a bit of English drizzle.”

“And slushy snow?”

Jill nodded with decision. “And winter clothes, and eating hot, well-buttered crumpets in front of the fire!”

Arab stared dreamily at the notes she was typing. “You’re welcome,” she said.

Hilary was much more sanguine about Arab’s prospects when she joined the other two in the garden. “I can’t think why you have to worry about everything all the time! Lucien says that now he’s found a willing slave to work for him, he’s not going to relinquish you easily!”

Arab blushed scarlet. “I wish you wouldn’t repeat what your uncle says all the time!” she protested.

Hilary looked at her with interest. “I think he’s right,” she announced. “He says that you’re so much in love with Africa that you don’t want to go home.”

Would that it were only Africa she was in love with! Arab turned grimly back to the typewriter, determined not to think about Lucien for two minutes put together. Surely that wasn’t taxing her powers too much? But it seemed it was. His writing was a blur before her eyes, and when she did manage to decipher something about the richness of the Swahili culture, it recalled his enthusiasm for the subject so vividly that she felt winded and unable to continue.

“What’s that about?” Hilary demanded. “You’re looking at it as though you can’t understand a word of it!”

“Yes,” Jill put in, “do you have to do that now? Surely Lucien wouldn’t object if you took half an hour off to relax with us?”

“I want to get it finished,” Arab answered, her chin set in a stubborn line that her friend recognised all too well.

“But what’s it about?” Hilary repeated.

“It’s about Swahili poetry,” Arab told her. “Did you know they were composing fine lyric poems, called
mashairiy
in medieval times?”

Hilary giggled. “We don’t learn any of them at school,” she said.

Arab frowned at her levity. “You would if your uncle had his way! It seems they wrote epic poems as well, called
tendi.”
She consulted Lucien’s notes. “They’re still writing them today. In the old days, though, they used a kind of corrupted Arabic script and a lot of Arabic idiom as well. Goodness, there were whole chronicles written about Mombasa and Pate! Did you know that when the archaeologists started to look at the ruined cities of the East African coast they thought they were looking at Arab or Persian towns, but now they aren’t so sure? They form a distinct variant among medieval Islamic patterns. They now think it more likely that there was already a fine African culture that was slowly Islamised—in fact it’s as much Negro as Islamic.”

Jill sat up on one elbow. “And you find that interesting?”

Arab nodded apologetically. “I’m going to learn Swahili,” she said. “I want to read all these poems for myself.”

“Good idea!” a masculine voice congratulated her. She turned swiftly, jarring her ankle against the table.
It made her feel even more angry with Lucien than she was already. What right had he to come creeping up and overhearing their conversation? She hadn’t wanted him to know that she planned to learn Swahili, for what chance would she ever have of coming back to Africa? She had thought it would be something she could do in England that would form a tenuous link between herself and her memories of him, because there was nothing else left to build on. He belonged to Sandra, and she—she would never belong to anyone, but would go lonely all her days.

Lucien came and stood very close beside her, peering over her shoulder at what she was typing.

“
Madaka ya nyamba ya zisahani Sasa walaliye wana wa nyuniy,
” he quoted softly. It sounded like liquid magic on his tongue.

“What does it mean?” Arab asked him, despite her best intentions.

“It means, ‘Where once the porcelain stood in the wall niches Now wild birds nestle their fledglings.’ ”

“Oh,” said Arab, “it could be Gedi, only there weren’t any birds there, were there? Still, it could have been Gedi.” She wanted it to be, urgently, though she didn’t know why. “I’d like it to be Gedi,” she ended uncertainly, feeling foolish.

“It was actually written about Pate,” Lucien answered her. “But it could have been Gedi.” He smiled intimately into her eyes. “Human birds get the nesting urge too,” he reminded her. “Perhaps that’s what Gedi means to you?”

Arab’s breath caught in the back of her throat. “If I had,” she said when she could, “it wouldn’t be anything to do with you!”

“No?” he taunted her. “I long ago learned never to listen to what a woman
says
, my dear. It’s her actions that count!”

“Lucien!” she exclaimed. “You’re not very gallant, are you?”

“More so than you deserve! How dare you deny your own instincts! Youth doesn’t excuse everything, Arab.”

Jill stirred uneasily. “I feel decidedly
de trop
,” she murmured. “Hilary and I will go and get ready for lunch.”

Arab was scarcely aware of their going. She sat miserably in front of the typewriter, wondering how Lucien could be so cruel. It wasn’t she who was denying anything—it was him! He was the one who had this understanding with Sandra!

Lucien pushed a handkerchief into her unwilling hand. He looked harassed and as uncertain as she felt. “I suppose you’re going to cry now!” he said in goaded tones. “You’d better be prepared.”

“I’m
not
going to cry!”

Lucien sat on the edge of the table and looked down at her. He looked as stern and as unyielding as she had ever seen him.

“If you’re not going to cry, suppose you tell me what went wrong,” he suggested.

“Nothing
went wrong! We—we both agreed that an—an affair was not what we wanted, and that there wasn’t any chance of anything else. Well, I’ve had time to think, and I don’t think I would enjoy having an affair with anyone anyway. I think I must be the all or nothing kind. So I’m quite happy to settle for nothing—”

“You look happy!” he commented.

“I am happy!” she declared furiously. “It would take more than one kiss from you to disturb me, let me tell you—”

“Then I’ll kiss you again!” His arms went round her and his lips descended on hers. When he had finished, he gave her a mocking smile of triumph. “Are you still undisturbed?”

“I
hate you
!”

His hands fell to his sides. “There are times when I do a pretty good job of hating myself,” he admitted. “I’m sorry, Arab.”

“It doesn’t
matter
,” she said dully.

“I think it does. I’m beginning to think an affair wouldn’t suit me either. Will you stay here a week or two longer, Arab, and finish typing up my notes for me?”

She shook her head. “The others are going back to England—there’s my birthday, you see. My parents expect me to share it with them. They—they’ve made plans for what we’re going to do. I can’t disappoint them now.”

Lucien stared at her for a long moment. “Sammy is taking Sandra to England with him. That’s what I wanted your passport for, to get your visitor’s permit extended. You won’t be able to fly back with the others, Arab.”

“But I have to! I can’t stay here!”

“Can’t you, little one?”

“I’ve told you! I won’t stay in your house without another woman being here. I’m—I’m sorry, Lucien.” Another thought struck her. “Sammy can’t leave me stranded here, can he?”

“Not if he wants to stay alive!” Lucien assured her with a hint of a smile. “But I hope you’ll stay, all the same. When you’re twenty-one I’ll feel better about forcing a decision on you that you seem far too young to make at the moment!”

Arab clenched her fists. “I shan’t change my mind!”

“Circumstances change—”

“But people’s feelings don’t!” she exclaimed sharply.

He smiled at her, his eyes suddenly warm and amused. “Is that a promise?” he asked her.

She tried to stop the blush that crept up her cheeks. “Don’t you think you ought to ask someone else that?” she countered with dignity.

He put a hand on the nape of her neck so that she couldn’t escape his searching glance. “Whom would you suggest I ask?”

“S—Sandra,” she stammered.

His grasp tightened on her neck. “Sandra has nothing to do with you,” he ripped into her. “Or do you resent her success with Sammy Silk?”

“Oh, but,” Arab said before she had thought, “that doesn’t mean a thing! She only wants to make sure of a job with Sammy. She’s waiting—” She broke off, appalled at how easily she might have broken the other girl’s confidence. “I mean—”

“Yes?”

“I mean she’s in love with someone else,” Arab ended dismally.

His hand fell away from her. “Oh, Arab, spare me that! Is it likely that Sandra would confide in someone like you? She’s practically old enough to be your mother! Nor does she have much time for anyone as ingenuous as you are, as you’ve heard her say yourself. No, my dear, you may be too young to be sure of your own emotions, but don’t try to shift the responsibility on to anyone else. You have exactly one week, my love, to sort yourself out, and not a moment longer!”

Arab gritted her teeth together. “I shall be back in England then,” she muttered with a toss of her head.

“Perhaps.”

“I told you! I’m going to celebrate my birthday with my parents and—and that’s in a week’s time. So you see—”

“One week!” he repeated.

He strode off into the house as though he couldn’t stand her company an instant longer. Arab sat on in the garden for a long time, exhausted by the interview with Lucien and, damn it all, she believed she was going to cry after all! She found she was still holding his handkerchief and, holding it close against her cheek, the tears brimmed over and ran unchecked down her face.
He knew
, she thought, he knew he had only to touch her and she was helpless against him. He probably thought she would share him with Sandra, and would still think that Sandra was none of her business. He had lived too long in a Moslem environment to see anything wrong with that! But how dared he blame it on her? No, she decided wearily, the sooner she went back to England the better. In England, her parents would make a fuss of her and she would forget all about him. She sniffed pathetically and dabbed at her face with his handkerchief. Sandra was welcome to him! They were very well matched. They were both adult and sophisticated and would doubtless understand if they each had less than an exclusive interest in the other! Whereas she was young and foolish and wanted nothing else than the whole of Lucien’s love. And a lot of chance she had of that, with only her
gamin
, ragamuffin ways and charm to help her. She might as well make up her mind to that, no matter how much it hurt.

If she was still red-eyed and a little tearful at lunchtime, everyone was far too tactful to remark on it. Only Hilary asked her if her ankle was hurting her and, when she admitted that it was, began to tell her uncle that Arab had had enough of sitting round the house. “You ought to take her to see the Giriama dancers,” she said, looking quaintly up at him. “Typing all your stuff doesn’t take her mind off the pain!”

Lucien shot a glance across the table at Arab.

“Perhaps it isn’t only her ankle that’s hurting,” he said.

But Hilary only laughed at this suggestion. “Her head has stopped aching,” she told him with an authoritative air. “One’s head only aches when one actually has malaria, but Arab hasn’t got it now, and I see that she takes her paludrin every day, so she probably won’t get it again.”