The Reluctant Guest (23 page)

Storr gazed at them both as though this were beyond the limits of even their insanity. His hand, resting on the arm of his chair, closed into a tight fist and he leaned forward.

Slowly, with words that sounded like hurled stones, he said, “She’s
driving
here? Do you realize it’s well over a thousand miles by road from Cape Town to Durban!”

“As much as that?” said Mr. Calvert. And then to his wife: “Find the letter, my dear. I believe she said she’s hoping to do about two hundred miles a day. Is the road dangerous, Mr. Peterson?”

“Any road is dangerous to a lone woman! There are mountain passes, tremendous stretches without a garage, and the nights alone in strange hotels. Why the blazes did you allow it?”

“My dear fellow,” said Mr. Calvert worriedly, “I couldn’t stop her. We had the letter this morning and it was posted three days ago, just as she was leaving Cape Town. She did say she has had the Morris serviced and that the man who checked the car said it would do the trip easily. She thought it was such a good idea to bring the car to us, and Rusty, too, and to save her own train fare. She’s doing it partly for economy reasons and partly because it’s all new territory, and rather exciting.”

Storr quickly took the letter Mrs. Calvert offered. He read some of it and looked up. “If she’s made it she’s due home tomorrow,” he said. “This evening, according to her planning, she should reach Kokstad. Thank God she had the sense to decide on daylight travel. Even so
...
” He broke off, looked at his watch and got rather violently to his feet. “What color is this Morris?”

“Cream,” said Mrs. Calvert.

“The number?”

She gave it, and asked anxiously, “Do you really think
there’s danger, Mr. Peterson? Ann isn’t foolhardy; she wouldn’t do something silly just for the thrill of it.”

“She might do it fr
om
a feeling of desperation!” He had already taken a pace or two away from them. “I’ll get down to the store and do some telephoning. If I’m not back
...
”

He didn’t tell them what to conclude, but slid behind the wheel of the estate car and shot away.

Mrs. Calvert stared at the spot where the car had disappeared, turned to her husband and said, “What a very strange man. He spoke as if we’re prize idiots and Ann just some child who doesn’t know what she’s doing. What did he mean—that Ann might do something foolish from desperation? Did
you
think she was desperate?”

Her husband answered soothingly, “Of course not. She was unhappy about Theo, but I’m sure she’s over it now. It
is
rather a long journey for a girl on her own, but as she says, it’s exciting, and the independence will make her feel good.”

“He didn’t drink his tea,” she said absently.

“I think we’re fortunate,” commented her husband with humour, “that he didn’t tip over the table and break a window or two. He looked all set for it. You’d better get out the whisky, my dear, in case he comes back.”

“In a way,” said Mrs. Calvert, “I hope he will come back—but not till Ann’s here to help us manage him!”

A
nn, that evening, dined at a small round table in the corner of a hotel diningroom. It was rather early, barely seven, and only a few guests were eating while the rest finished sundowners in the comfortable little lounge that ran along the front of the hotel. Ann had decided to get to bed by nine-thirty and leave at dawn on the last lap of her journey. She had also been hungry because she had missed lunch, and because, after a prolonged absence, her appetite was returning to normal.

Driving from Cape Town had been an experience she wouldn’t have like to miss. There was the Garden Route, the Eastern Cape, and then the Transkei, with its unbelievable hundreds of miles of undulations and native
huts. She had seen women in red blankets and with red clay headdresses and
inn
umerable necklets, primitive pushcarts without wheels being loaded with ripe corn-cobs, tiny towns teeming with bush natives; and once she had seen a lone woman on a low hill, preparing for some rite by smearing her naked body with white clay.

And then apart from the unforgettable scenes, there had been the peace of just driving, concentrating half on the road and half on the pictures of Africa that continually opened out in front of her. The Morris had behaved well, Rusty had been the sort of companion she needed, inarticulate but affectionate, and she had had the satisfaction of knowing that she had done everything possible to conserve the modest family capital. Next week she would find a job and help her mother to search for a house; something small and easy to run with the aid of one of those Zulu houseboys they had in Natal.

In a way she was sorry this would be her last night on her own because she was just beginning to get back a little of her resilience. At least, she was more reconciled. During the first two or three days in Cape Town she had packed her emotions away below the conscious level and used coldness and studied indifference as a defence; it hadn’t come off. She had shivered and sweated in the night, become prey to every blinding, conflicting emotion and yet been glad of solitude in her utter disillusionment. During the daytime she had ruthlessly kept her emotions in their place, but the grief had been there, a tangible spear that came at her from odd directions: the width of a man’s shoulders, a plane against the sky, the shining flank of a horse.

People had been kind, regretful that the Calverts were moving to Natal. They had given her dinner, invited her to beach parties, been helpful in many ways. But somehow there had been unreality in the atmosphere for Ann, and it was only after she had driven away from Cape Town in the loaded little car that she had begun to feel the least bit resigned. That ache which seemed to have found permanent lodging between her diaphragm and her throat could not be ignored, but it would have to be lived with till she found a remedy.

She finished the light dinner, asked the waiter for a plate of scraps and a bone, and lit a cigarette while she waited for them. They came, a generous dinner for Rusty, and she thanked the smiling, dark-skinned man who brought them, and slipped through a side door into the hotel yard, where a line of cars were parked. She unlocked the Morris and Rusty sprang out, slavering at the sight of the food. While he ate she smoked and walked up and down, but when he carried the bone to a patch of grass she locked the car and went back into the hotel. The manager had consented to the dog’s spending the night in her small balcony, and she knew Rusty would come up and find her.

In her room she half undressed and put on a silk dressing gown. It wasn’t quite eight o’clock, and she decided to read for a while. But the book, like all the literature she studied these days, seemed to have no grip. She read a few lines, mused on the mountains which, though unseen, were not far from her window, and breathed in the sharp, clear breeze. Odd to
think
that tomorrow night she would sleep in the warm, humid air of Umbenizi.

There came a tap at the door and she called, “Come in,” expecting the usual servant who always appeared in any hotel to turn down the sheet. She didn’t even look up as someone entered and closed the door. But then she was aware of a sudden stab of warning, and of their own volition her fingers tightened over the edges of the open book. She turned her head, felt the blood drain from her cheeks, leaving them icy.

“Good evening,” said Storr.

The past fortnight, the struggles and small conquests, the tremendous battle between emotion and common sense, the precarious peace she had attained—all were expunged in a second. She was raw and quivering, but still enough in command to force a cool answer through her lips.

“Well, hallo. Again the unexpected!”

There was an inevitable silence. His glance, grey and comprehensive, moved over the room, with its single bed and lamp by the bedside, its wardrobe cupboard, dressing
-
table and luggage rack. It came back to rest on the girl in a blue wrap who sat in the cushioned wicker chair.

“Are you all right?” he asked distantly.

“Yes, of course. Did you know I was here, or is this accidental?”

“Hardly accidental. What would I be doing in Kokstad?”

“You mean
...
you can’t mean you came to find me?”

“I heard that you were here from your parents. I went to Umbenizi this morning and couldn’t believe you were driving alone from Cape Town. It was quite a relief to see your car outside.”

He sounded impersonal, looked jaded and a little tired. Ann hadn’t seen him like this before; in Storr it was alarming.

“It’s been a lovely trip,” she said. Then, uncertainly: “I don’t understand this. Were you at a loose end, or something?”

“I didn’t get that polite thank-you note at Belati.”

She closed the book, held it rather tightly. “No. I didn’t know what to say.”

“You knew what to write to Theo. He told me.”

“I answered his letter, that was all.”

A pause. “Did he mention that he’s going to concentrate on flying—no women?”

She nodded. “I think he’s bound to feel that way just now.”

“But you’re hoping he’ll change, some time soon?”

She looked up at him, saw the straight line of his mouth, his unreadable eyes. “I don’t mind what he does. When did you see him?”

“Last? A few days ago. He had to come to Groenkop to clear up a few details at the cottage. We did more
talking
than we’ve ever done before in all the years we’ve known each other.” He leaned back against the wall. “He’s not in love with you, little one.”

“I know.”

“Is that why you had to goad yourself into driving all alone for more than a thousand miles?”

“No,” tremulously, “it isn’t. I’ve never been in love with Theo.” She stood up and placed the book on the bedside table. “I don’t think you ought to be in here, do you?”

“You’re safe enough. This isn’t the shack at Umbezini.” His teeth went together, his faint smile was malicious.
“You really got cold feet there in the shack, didn’t you? You thought you knew why I’d insisted on driving through in the storm. The truth of it never came to you; you don’t know it, even now.”

She turned and faced him. “Are you staying here at the hotel tonight?”

“I’ve booked a room, yes.”

“Then
...
then we can talk tomorrow.”

He shook his head. “I’ve done a sight too much waiting and thinking during the past fortnight. I’m not prolonging it. Let me tell you a few things.” He settled back squarely against the wall, his hands in his pockets, his face sharp and lean as he looked at her. “I know all about Elva
—
Theo’s problem child. She wanted you to marry him and keep him well out of the way because he knew too much about her past
.
She had ideas for her own future. When Theo wrote her that he wasn’t returning to Groenkop she saw some plan of her own disintegrating. Heaven knows what the plan was, but it meant a lot to Elva, and in her twisted mind she blamed you. Hence the episode in the stable.”

Apparently he didn’t know everything even yet, and
Ann
decided it didn’t matter. She said quietly, “Elva resented my having parents who care for me. Once Theo had let her down, as she thought, she had no one to turn to. I happened to be there when she was working the disappointment out of her system.”

In flat tones he asked, “Did you ever read the note from Theo to his sister?”

She nodded. “I found it just as we were preparing to leave in your plane.”

Then he said something which brought Ann’s heart straight up into her throat. “Did it make any difference to you—reading that Chloe and I had kissed goodbye in Johannesburg?”

Her chin trembled. “You
...
you knew what was in the letter?”

“Theo told me. I was trying to get to the bottom of the incident in the stable, and asked him to concentrate on remembering what he’d written, word for word.” He reiterated, mercilessly, “Well? Did it make any difference?”

She drew a dry lip between her teeth, realized it. “Why should I care whom you kiss?”

He straightened away from the wall, suddenly. “I’d care like hell if
you
kissed someone else! You’re not indifferent to me, and don’t pretend you are. You hated having to ask my help when you heard about your father’s knee, couldn’t bear me to touch you, couldn’t bring yourself to write even the conventional word of thanks. And you tore off to Cape Town and kept as busy as you could. If you’re not in love with Theo you must be in love with some other man. You may not know it, Pretty Ann, but you’re fighting with all you’ve got
...
against me!”

She was white, but still defensive. “You kissed Chloe De Vries ... so what?”

“I didn’t, as it happens. She kissed me, which is rather different. There was a crowd on the spot and the most sensible thing was to treat the incident casually.”

“Why tell me? It’s your affair, isn’t it?”

“You use the most explosive words,” he said savagely. “There’s no affair! I know what you’re thinking, but you’re all wrong. What beats me is why you couldn’t have come out into the open. If you’d asked me about it, instead of icing up over it all the way to Durban in the plane, and after, we might have got somewhere!”

Ann stared at him; she felt lightheaded. “You must be mad,” she said unsteadily. “I couldn’t question you about your relationship with that
...
that woman.”

“There’s no relationship—never has been! Get that into your head. Don’t argue any more. Just believe it!”

“All right—where are we now? You blame me for being quiet in the plane and afterwards, but what about you? You were the coldest, most cynical brute
...
” She almost choked, but hurried on, “There’s no sense in this—none at all. We don’t even seem to be talking about the same things!”