When Karen saw Mark standing at the foot of the veranda steps, hatless, his thick brown hair springy in the milky rays of the morning sun, his eyes and mouth smiling, her heart moved with the delicious pain of love.
"Good morning, Kitten. You look sparkling." His glance went beyond her, to the small figure planted squarely on the top step, the boyish brow thunderous. "Hallo, old son. Wish you were coming?"
"Are you going?" Keith demanded with a touch of hoarseness. "Some of the way."
"Will you be back today?"
"No. I may be gone several days."
"You—you didn't say."
"I didn't know till the mail came up yesterday. Sorry, boyo." He opened the car door. As Karen moved to get in she felt the impact of the tough little body, the flailing of his arms.
"It's you," Keith cried. "Mark lived here till you came and took his room. You've spoiled everything and now you're making him go with you—"
He was struggling in Mark's firm grasp, sobbing angrily, incoherently. "That's enough," said Mark. "You're getting above yourself. Apologise at once."
"I—won't."
"Don't make him," begged Karen. "He'll get over it."
Mark carried the boy into the house, and when he returned he was smiling a little grimly. "We've made too much of that lad. If he can't take his disappointments better than that—"
"He's only seven."
He shrugged off the subject, but for the rest of the day Keith's outburst seemed to lie between them like a path of thorns.
WHEN, after breakfast at the Winchesters', it was suggested that Mark should take a passenger, he chose Roy, saying that the women would doubtless prefer to ride together in the bush car.
Beyond Guaba the views were extensive. Ahead, the thin silver line of the sky, and on each side the changing colours of maize fields, banana groves and grassland dotted with purple pigeons and an occasional pompous secretary bird. Signposts of civilisation became more frequent—fields of wheat and barley, gates leading to farmhouses, grazing cattle, interspersed with a tract of forest timber where monkeys cavorted, or a stretch of scanty grass over which roamed zebra and wildebeeste, those inseparable companions of the plains. Dominating the landscape rose Mount Kenya, coolly remote, the snowy peaks glistening against a brooding grey-blue sky. To Karen, even its fern-clad lower slopes appeared impenetrable.
They lunched late, beneath a mango which spread an oasis of shade along the banks of a stream, from which water was drawn for coffee. Afterwards they lay on their backs, steeped in contentment.
"Do you branch off at Mbini?" Evelyn asked Mark, and, when he had nodded, added, "That means you'll leave us round about four. Can't you really come with us?"
"I have to welcome a friend from Sweden this weekend. Hanim's gone ahead to perk up the house."
"Oh, well, I suppose it can't be helped, only it does seem to be getting stickier, and there's the cloud lid going down on Kenya. I thought an extra car might be useful."
"Thanks," he said tersely. "If you women had any sense you'd spend the weekend in town."
"We can't now. We haven't brought the right sort of clothes. Never mind, darling," reaching over to pat his head. "You mean well, even if
you do have old-fashioned ideas about women being under cover when there's moisture in the air. If we're not in Monday's paper you'll know we got through."
Mark said, "I notice your menfolk are keeping quiet."
"I'm not worrying yet," yawned Roy.
Mark said no more. Later, when the two cars parted company he bade them an abrupt goodbye. For a second his eyes met Karen's, but his were dark and enigmatic as quartz. She hoped her own revealed as little.
Night was closing in when they reached the rest house owned by a colleague of Roy's who had gone home on leave. Rain was falling, a light mountain shower more like a hot drifting mist, which got inside one's clothes and damped the spirit, too. The but was a simple structure of local stone roofed with reeds and daub that let through a continuous spatter of rain in one corner.
Everyone was tired. After a meal and a brief chat, the men went outside to sleep in the bush car, while Evelyn and Karen composed themselves on their mattresses. About midnight a storm broke over the valley. Evelyn sat up. "Good heavens, just listen to that. I suppose we ought to congratulate ourselves on having got here first."
"Will it last long?" Karen wanted to know.
"I don't think so—it's too violent—but the rain may go on for days." "What do we do in that case?"
"Stay put till there's a lull. If this storm belt is moving westward we're in for a lively journey home. Ah, well," philosophically settling back into her blanket, "we brought food for four days so we shan't starve till about Wednesday."
BUT in the morning the air was clear and sweet, and above them towered a blue gossamer mountain capped with diamonds of glistening snow. The majestic vistas on either side were painted in pastel, while below hung the vivid green bowl of the valley.
"Stupendous," breathed Karen. "Do let's climb."
The two men, having undoubtedly indulged in an exhaustive discussion in the bush car, had decided to abandon the original project of camping at five thousand feet. "If we had any sense, as Mark Howard would say, we'd start for home while the sun shines," said John. "As we haven't, we'll spend today climbing as far as possible, and come back here for the night. If we're lucky, we'll be home by sundown tomorrow."
It turned out to be a morning full of small, delightful adventures. At one point they had a view of a huge facet of the mountain, green with ferns except where tiny waterfalls foamed over ledges and gushed down to join the numerous streams. In a forest of camphor and podocarpus they found drifts of yellow flowers and minute butterflies, while overhead monkeys and gay plumaged parrots darted among branches that shut out the sky.
All the time they were climbing. Through mighty timber to small wattle
bush, through thickets of bamboo, and rough scrub which bloomed scarlet and orange, and up out on to a plateau. The mountain was no longer the single peak it appeared far off, but a series of wild, snow-covered heights bathed in an alpine blue light that turned to a hard grey as clouds rolled up, shedding still more snow over the jagged, icebound precipices.
"I really will have a go at the snow line one of these days," Evelyn said regretfully. "I could spend a whole month exploring up there."
"Just now, my sweet," interposed John, "I doubt whether it's wise even to stop for lunch. We've flouted common sense, and we're about to pay for it."
Sure enough the rain came, a deluge that washed in rivers over their feet as they hurried, Evelyn anchored by a rope to John and Karen to Roy. In the forest, drenched to the skin, they sheltered and ate, laughing at their own foolhardiness. When they moved on again, Roy held Karen back. "You look pale," he said anxiously. "Sure you're all right?"
"I'm no wetter than you are."
"I feel rotten about this. It was mad to ignore Mark's warning. Even John knew the rain was coming, but he just didn't care."
"It won't take so long to get back. Then we can change and get warm. I'm all right, Roy, really."
For the rest of the descent he kept tight hold of her, shielding her from the ferocity of the rain in exposed places. When at last they reached the hut, the floor lay under three inches of water and their bedding was saturated.
"Of all the joys in mountaineering," stated Evelyn an hour later when, quite dry and sipping mugs of beef tea, they squatted on boxes round the rough blackwood table, "this beats the lot. Wouldn't Mark be amused if he could see us ! I expect he thought we'd rush off home after the storm this morning." She paused ruminatively. "Didn't he say he was expecting someone from Sweden? John, do you remember George Sanderfield?"
"Yes. Mark's pal, who died of black water fever on safari about a year ago."
"He had a Swedish wife."
"So he did. Ingrid or Astrid, or something. A rather ravishing blonde. She and Mark were often together. People said he'd have
made a play for her if she hadn't been George's wife."
"People will say anything," replied Evelyn. "Still, it does look interesting, doesn't it, his having the house in Nairobi polished up for his best friend's widow."
"His visitor may not be a woman at all," Karen inserted, her voice low and tremulous.
"Mrs. Sanderfield's the only Swedish person he knows well enough to lend his house to—I'm sure of that. We've known Mark ever since he came to Kenya. How funny if, having escaped English and American heiresses and hordes of disillusioned young wives, he should tie up at last with a Swedish widow."
Karen ventured no further rejoinder. The healthy tiredness of her body
was developing into a dull exhaustion. All the glow had faded from the expedition. There might be no foundation at all for Evelyn's conjectures. On the other hand, Karen couldn't help recalling his preoccupation during lunch and his swift goodbye as he swerved along the road towards Nairobi—and his guest from Sweden.
THE drive home to Guaba through roads transformed into gurgling red rivers, under a sky split by ceaseless lightning and loosing an endless cascade of rain, was a nightmare that Karen lived through but hoped to forget. For a few days afterwards she sniffled and sneezed, and Roy and Evelyn did likewise. Only John, "the insensitive bullock" as Roy termed him between atishoos, escaped unscathed.
To everyone's satisfaction the rain persisted. Justin waded out in top boots to superintend the planting of his seedlings, and quite often Karen went along, too. The air was so fresh, the sight of abundant new growth so heartening, that a trip round the Shamba represented a daily excursion into a continually changing world.
The cattle looked sick and sorry for themselves, but the grass upon which they fed grew thick and tender, and it was not long before the dairy became the busiest building on the farm. Elizabeth seemed to spend the bulk of her time separating milk and packing butter ready for delivery to the co-operative creamery at Guaba. In the evenings she checked the returns and smiled happily over mounting profits.
Now, observing Justin absorbed in his flowering coffee trees and Elizabeth in her dairy, Karen experienced the onlooker's envy of their exhilarating struggle with this country of contrasts. They were living proof that, contrary to common belief, one did not need money so much as courage and patience and resolution, to wrest a living from the soil of Kenya. Barring a mistimed drought and the usual diseases, Justin was in for an excellent coffee season.
The bitter-sweet scent of the thick snowy blossoms permeated the house like an airborne stimulant. Even Keith, his disappointment forgotten in the surge of new life, tramped the dripping garden and licked the rain from his lips. He loved sloshing along the streaming paths, dragging his homemade boat and singing to himself.
This year Justin, in his unemotional fashion, was happier than ever before in the rains, for he had decided to reduce his maize acreage by half and plant fifty experimental acres with blue gum and Tasmanian blackwood, both quick-growing trees which would yield early returns as timber. Karen helped him to carry out the plants, eight or ten to a box, and watched the workers follow instructions in the lashing rain that ran to the roots of the seedlings and made them grip and sprout into immediate pinkish-green growth. With both Elizabeth and Justin she stood fearfully on the veranda in the evening darkness, hoping that the glimpse of stars between wispy
clouds was only temporary. Everyone wanted the rain to continue undiminished in quantity and vigour. For Karen, the rains also held a deeper, sweeter significance, for while they persisted Mark could work only desultorily, and consequently he was a frequent visitor to the farm.
The road to Nairobi was completely impassable, a condition against which Mark inveighed, but without vehemence, about once a week. Sometimes he arrived in the high lorry soon after breakfast and stayed the whole day. Then, Keith was excused lessons and everyone helped in some capacity.
"Why don't you try flax?" Mark asked Justin one day when the two men stood, as men will, staring rather pointlessly over the emerald land beyond the wire fence which enclosed the plantation. "I believe in mixed farming, the bigger and more varied the better. You rely too exclusively on coffee. If we had another locust year you'd find yourself in a spot."
"I'd have to fold up," said Justin simply. "That's why I'm planting timber."
"But timber's long-term stuff, even the quickest growing, and fifty acres won't take you far, anyway. Flax is seasonal, and pays well. If I were you, I'd increase my acreage each year and try different crops."
"If you were me," said Justin with blunt good humour, "you couldn't afford the risk. I'm not a confounded bachelor with other irons in the fire."
Karen, leaning against a nearby tree, found herself listening intently for Mark's reply. He laughed. "You can't blame me for that. And I'd like to see what you'd do to anyone who tried to relieve you of your domestic responsibilities! I've never know a fellow to wallow in them with such relish as you do."
Justin's heavy features took on a faint smile. "We're different types, Mark, or perhaps it's a matter of temperament. I'm a slow thinker and cautious. I'd give a lot to have a cool, searching mind like yours."
"Believe it or not," said Mark, only half-bantering, "a mathematical brain has disadvantages."
Justin's shoulders lifted, characteristically. "Women being the illogical sex, it's certainly no asset in marriage. If you ever get married, old chap, you're in for fireworks. Can't have it all your own way then."
"If I ever get married," echoed Mark with deliberate cynicism, "I shall have reached that besotted state—heaven help me!—where it doesn't matter who is boss."
Following which devastating pronouncement, all three tramped home. Later, when the rain which had been falling all day gave way to a storm of unusual violence, they gathered in the living-room over tea and scones, and Mark reverted to the theme of planting. It was odd, thought Karen, how he could stick to a definite line of thought while the house rocked and reverberated to the cannons of thunder, and rain avalanched into the garden with supernatural force.
"If I were staying in this district indefinitely," Mark was saying, "I'd buy
land and do farming as a sideline. Some flax, a few banana groves, oranges, and a large acreage of groundnuts. I wonder you don't try groundnuts, Justin. They're crying out for them in Europe."
"I've thought about it. Someone sent me a pamphlet on how to grow them and where to buy the seed. It looked easy enough in print."
"It is easy. Elizabeth or the kitten here could do it." Karen was not sure that she cared to be written off as 'the kitten'. Mark went on, "We'll go into it together if you like. It shouldn't be difficult to get early possession of the piece alongside this place. In fact, we'll take over at once and start planting while the deal is going through."
"Sounds good," said Justin. "I can't spring the capital, but I'll manage the ploughing and sowing for you."
The men continued their planning while Keith listened.
Elizabeth's knitting needles flashed in the sluggish firelight, and Karen was attacking the third of a set of luncheon mats, the material for which she had bought in Nairobi three months ago, on her second day in Kenya. There was always so much to do and see that she doubted the likelihood of the set ever being completed. But it was good to sit and embroider in this little world shut off by the elements, with Mark just across the room, his expression keen and calculating over the new proposition.
Owing to the condition of the roads, he had to leave before dusk. "I don't quite get his idea," said Elizabeth, when he had gone. "Why the sudden interest in farming?"
"It's not sudden," replied Justin. "He's always enjoyed finding fault with my methods. After all, he was reared pretty close to nature."
"But why now, any more than last year, or next?"
"It may be only a whim. He's probably bored and looking for an outlet. His sort can't bear inaction." A diagnosis which Karen suspected to be true, though her heart wished otherwise.
CHAPTER
III
AS the storm had worn itself out and set the feminine nerves a little on edge, the weather cleared for a few days. A decided coolness
set in, due to the cloud blanket which hid the sun. Keith and Karen got back into the routine of lessons, and Roy Strasmore made the journey up from Guaba and spent a night in Keith's room.
Next morning, he invited Karen to make an inspection of the school site. They jolted over roads washed clean to the jagged rock base and silted in the dips with slippery wet mud. "My poor springs," groaned Roy. "This old bus creaks in every joint, and I daren't buy a new one till my life gets back on an even keel. I wish you were in love with me, Karen."
The unexpectedness of this remark brought a bubble of laughter to her lips. "How would that restore your equilibrium?"
"You're here, and now—and very sweet. If you loved me, I'd break with Glenys, marry you, and together we'd make that little house on the plains a place to go home to, not to run away from."
"You forget one important point. You'd have to love me, too." "I'm not sure that I don't."
"You would be if you did—which sounds ambiguous, but it's sense if you work it cut. Why don't you break with Glenys anyway? You and she can't possibly be in love, or you'd have stood the test of separation."
"One doesn't jilt a girl like Glenys!"
"No, but you might diplomatically suggest that she should jilt you. I'm
sure you'd feel happier if you were free."
"I don't know. A fellow in my sort of job needs a wife—one like you."
"You'll know her, Roy, when you meet her, and I bet she'll be nothing at all like me."
He glanced at her curiously. "For a moment your tone had me wondering. As you spoke then you sounded exclusive, as though you were reserved for someone else."
Her answer was a smile. Privately, she pondered Roy's comments. His light allusion to marriage had reminded her of the young men in the shipping office in London—how remote were those days now!—who had confided to her their set-backs and conquests in the field of love. Roy, too, found her a good listener. And Mark—who was not given to unloading his private affairs to anyone—would the time ever come when she'd learn just a little of what lay behind that aloof, charming facade?
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