Welcome to Paradise (9 page)

“So you’re Bernard’s girl, are you?” she crowed. The bright
beady
eyes studied Alix’s face penetratingly. She added, “Well, young man, I hope you realise how fortunate you are?”

Before Bernard could reply Sandra said quickly, “May we have tea right away, Mummy, and then I’ll show Alix her room? I have to exercise Victor again, you know, for an hour or so.”

So I’ll have a chance to talk to Bernard alone, Alix thought.

Up to now, everything about their meeting had seemed somehow unreal. Nothing about it that you could grasp, hold on to
...

The talk during tea was of her journey, her impressions of the Cape and Johannesburg.

“We must show Alix
our
big city one day soon,” Sandra said.

“Yes, we’ll go in and make a day of it,” Mr. Barrett promised. “Lunch at the Club. Shopping—girls always seem to have shopping to do, I don’t suppose Alix is an exception to the rule. A drive round the environs. Maybe a
film
, if there’s anything good on.”

“It sounds lovely,” Alix said.

“Let’s wait till Richard comes to stay,” Sandra suggested.

Bernard said quickly, “Yes, good idea. Don’t you think so, sir?”

After tea, Sandra took Alix to one of the guest cottages. It was a big thatched rondavel with a veranda. It contained a bed-sitting-room and bathroom.

“It’s all yours,” Sandra said. “You don’t need to be nervous. We keep ridgebacks as watchdogs—they wouldn’t let anyone get near at night.”

“I won’t be nervous,” Alix promised, remembering Nelson, and the ridge that was like a neat tan zipper along his sturdy back. He was a splendid watchdog too, her aunt’s “guardian angel.” The thought of him brought back oddly nostalgic memories of Paradise
...

Sandra excused herself after a minute or two.

“It’s this new mount of mine,” she said. “He was a birthday present from Daddy, but at present he’s rather a handful. Did you bring riding kit, Alix?”

“No, I’m afraid I didn’
t. I’ve got slacks, of course.”

“Oh well, we must see if I can’t fix you up. You’ll soon be able to manage Trojan. He’s got no vices at a
ll
.”

“Has the new one?”

“One bad one. He shies. I’m trying to get him out of it. I must fly now. I’ll tell Bernard to come along, shall
I?”

“Please do.”

Slipping out of the too-warm jersey suit, Alix changed quickly into a cool cotton, a honey-yellow that flattered her eyes and skin. She strolled out on to her veranda, looked out over the flat country which was varied here not only by scattered rock, but by one or two lone hills—kopjes, she supposed they must be
—
with rocky crests and thickly bushed sides.
Not
beautiful at all, she thought; weird, rather. The vast rock from which Punchestown took its name was positively grotesque. She hoped they would be able to find more attractive country when they got around to leasing a farm.

Bernard was coming for her now. He looked wonderfully fit. His walk had a spring in it, as if he were full of life and vigour.

He said, “Like to come for a walk, Alix? I ha
ve to go down to the tobacco barn
s. It’s not very far.”

Alix said, smiling brightly to hide her disappointment that he didn’t seem to want to kiss her, “I’d love it, Bernard. How well you look, darling.”

He shrugged.

“Suppose the life suits me. You’re looking well yourself.”

“I’m terribly glad to be here.”

He said, “Ready? Let’s go, then.”

This is terrible, Alix thought, as they walked in single file along a path which he said was a short cut they used when riding. So stiff. So
Uneasy
...

All the fears she had had when she first read Bernard’s letter returned to her. He had changed.
How
he had changed! She had been wrong, foolish to come here. He didn’t want her. He was embarrassed by her arrival. She had made a big mistake.

To cover her sense of disaster she talked vivaciously of
any
thin
g
that came into her head. Did he like the country? Did he find the heat trying? How odd all those scattered rocks were. Was that a kopje over there?—she had always wondered just what a kopje looked like. This one suggested lions to her. Might there be a lion’s den in among that bush and rock?

She could see that Bernard was doing his best. Once or twice she even had him laughing; once he said, “Really, Alix! What a little comic you are,” and took her arm and squeezed it against his side.

But there was nothing
lover-like
about him. Surely he couldn’t still be shy, with not a soul in sight except a native or two, wandering off towards the labour lines, and Sandra, cantering her gelding along a slight ridge a quarter of a mile away on their left?

After a time she said tentatively, “It was a pity about that farm, wasn’t it? I’d thought it was going to be just what you wanted. What went wrong, Bernard?” She saw his colour darken a little. He slashed at the dry heads of some weeds and said evasively, “Oh, that
—
lots of things, actually.”

“Such as what?”

He slashed again with his stick, impatiently.

“Oh lord, technical details that wouldn’t mean anything to you if I told you. And we had a big row over the tobacco ba
rn
s. He’d made certain promises about repairs to them—verbal promises, I mean—and then when it came to a written agreement he’d simply left them out. I wasn’t going to stand for that
—
couldn’t afford to, anyway.”

“You must have been very upset.”

He didn’t say whether he had been or not.

“As a matter of fact I’d been feeling rather bad about leaving Punchestown anyway. Felt I’d be letting Mr. Barrett down.”

“Oh—why?”

“He’d got it all fixed for a new pupil to take my place. But the chap changed his mind at the last minute. And
when his assistant manager was t
aken ill and had to be flown to England. So in a way it was a godsend that I hadn’t got myself tied up with this new farm.”

“Yes, I see,” Alix said.

But try as she would, she couldn’t say it with real warmth. She couldn’t help realising that he hadn’t looked at the situation from her point of view at all. He hadn’t thought that he might be letting her down. He had merely seen it as a godsend that the arrangements for their farm—and by natural corollary, their marriage—had fallen through.

Her heart sank down, down. She didn’t need to ask him whether he no longer loved her. It was only too plain. Whether he loved Sandra she couldn’t yet say. Certainly she couldn’t ask him. She could only hang on for a few days, hoping for some sign that would show her the truth—and then clear out on some excuse or other. Go back to Paradise, to Aunt Drusilla who would never, she was confidently sure, say “I told you so” ...

They had reached the tobacco lands now. They were irrigated, so the young plants were already being set out. He showed her the drying sheds, the sorting and packing ba
rn
s, and gave her a neat little lecture on the whole process of growing and curing tobacco.

And Alix did her best to seem bright and interested; but her heart was sick. Bernard was indifferent to her
—
so indifferent that he couldn’t even pretend. Or was it that his heart belonged so wholly, now, to someone else that he couldn’t bring himself to pretend?

She was glad when they were back at the house again, taking their sundowners on the veranda, facing the s
inking
sun, with the Barretts and Grandmama—who sat with her weak whisky and water clasped in her little claw of a hand and crowed that this was the nicest hour of the day.

Sandra came past the house on her gelding. As Richard had said, she looked stunning on a horse. She waved a hand and walked her mount on towards the stables. Bernard jumped up and went after her, “to give her a hand,” he explained to Alix.

They came back together some time later, talking, laughing. Sandra was aglow. Whether Bernard loved her or not, Alix was sure that she was in love with him.

She did her best to hide it, to give her her due, when they were all together watching the splendid going down of the sun. She made him sit next to Alix, while she herself curled up on the big settee beside her father, and made a fuss of a big grey cat that had come in and jumped up on her knee. She pretended to be very gay
—
but Alix guessed that really she was miserable. But not any more than I am myself, she thought sadly.

After dinner Sandra put some dance music on the radiogram. She said gaily, “Did Bernard tell you I’ve taught him to dance
the
samba, and the cha-cha-cha?”

“No! Have you really?” Alix exclaimed in genuine surprise. Bernard had always refused to dance. He had thought it effeminate, moronic. He had sworn he had no sense of rhythm and never would have. He looked acutely embarrassed now.

“For heaven’s sake, Sandra,” he protested. But some imp of mischief had got into her since she drank her sundowner. She said, “Come on, let’s show Alix what you can do,” and pulled him by the hand to a clear space of polished floor near the radiogram.

“Cha-cha-cha,” she cried, and started to twiddle her feet, holding him by the hands so that he couldn’t refuse to follow her lead. Soon the pair of them were dancing vigorously. Alix was more surprised than ever. Bernard was really quite good. She would never have believed he could tread so neat a measure.

“Bravo!” she cried when they had finished, clapping her hands. But when Sandra said imperiously, “Now you, Alix,” she begged to be excused.

“I’d like to go to my room, if you don’t mind,” she said, looking at Mrs. Barrett. “I’m rather tired after the flight—it was my first, you know. Would you think me rude if I went straight off to bed?”

“My dear, of course not. Maria will bring your tea in the morning—she’s the one who does your room and will look after your laundry. Bernard will see you to your room—won’t you, dear?”

“Rather.”

The grounds around the house were well lighted with electric lamps slung in the trees. In fact the garden looked quite fairy-like by night—though by daylight it was not much more than a rather dusty compound furnished with big shady trees, flowering shrubs, and sparse brown grass. Evidently, between tobacco and horses, no one had much time, here, for growing flowers or tending a lawn.

Now at last, when they came to Alix’s cottage, Bernard took her in his arms and kissed her. But it was a kiss without passion; his lips just brushed the comer of her mouth.

“Sleep well, Alix,” he said. “You won’t be nervous, will you? My rondavel is just over there, near enough for me to hear if you call. You mustn’t mind if you hear some weird sorts of noises. We get jackal around now and then, and occasionally a leopard. But you’re quite safe here. The dogs’ll give warning if there’s anything around, and Mr. Barrett or I will be about right away.”

She lifted her face and kissed him lightly, quickly, on the cheek.

“Don’t worry about me, Bernard. I shan’t be nervous with you so near,” she said warmly.

“No—well, I expect you’d like me to leave you now. Get your head down, and you’ll feel all right by tomorrow. Goodnight, dear.”

“Goodnight,” she said flatly. She would have loved it if he had sat down in the big armchair on her little veranda and pulled her on to his knee as he used to do sometimes at the Priory, and said cosily, “Now that we’re alone, let’s talk about our plans, shall we, darling?”

But she guessed, now, that that was never going to happen. She hadn’t imagined the evasiveness in his manner. He
was
being evasive. He didn’t
want
to talk to her alone. Oh, it was all too
...
too
...

Tears were stinging in her throat and behind her eyes. She said again, quickly, “Goodnight—see you in the morning,” and then turned and almost ran into her bedroom, and closed the door, and stood leaning her back against it while the tears poured unchecked down her face.

Outside, Bernard stood for a minute staring at the closed door. He felt miserable, an utter heel. But what could he do?

Finally, with a shrug of his broad shoulders and another guilty look at the door through which Alix had vanished, he turned away and walked slowly, thoughtfully, back to the house.

There was a telephone extension in Alix’s room. I’s bell tinkled while she was undressing, and she went and lifted the receiver off the hook.

“A call for you from Salisbury, Alix,” said Mr. Barrett’s voice. There was a series of clicks, then Richard’s voice spoke in her ear.

“That you, Alix?”

“Yes. Yes, it is.”

“Gone to bed already?”

“Not gone quite. Going. I’m rather tired after the journey.”

“I don’t wonder. How’d you find the Barretts?”

“They couldn’t be kinder.”

“And Bernard?”

He looks awfully well. He seems to like tobacco farming a lot.”

“Good thing, if that’s how he’s going to spend his life. He seems a nice chap, Alix.”

“I’m glad you think so, Richard.”

“Not good enough for you, of course—but then who would be?”

That made her laugh.

“Silly,” she said.

“Not silly. Just—bemused.”

“If you’re going to talk like that I shall ring off,” Alix said sternly. But he only laughed at her.

“Your voice sounds odd,” he said. “Have you been crying?”

“N—not crying. What nonsense you talk, Richard. Why should I cry?”

“Oh, girls do,” he said airily. “Homesickness—unusual excitement—disappointment—anything sets their waterworks off.”

“You seem to know a great deal about girls.”

“I’d like to know a great deal more—about one girl.”

The conversation was getting a little out of hand. Alix said quickly, “Look, Richard, it’s sweet of you to have rung me. But will you mind if I say goodnight now? I truly am awfully tired.”

“No, I won’t mind. Provided you’ll promise to come in to Salisbury and have lunch with me tomorrow
—
you and Bernard and Sandra. Will you invite them for me? And ring me tomorrow morning around nine
-
thirty to say if it’s on?”

He gave her a number and she promised to call him. He said softly, “Good. And don’t forget, Alix.”

“Forget what?”

“That I love you. Goodnight. And God bless.” There was no
thin
g in that, was there, to set the tears flowing again, like gentle rain, down Alix’s cheeks
...