Fair Horizon

by Rosalind Brett

  "So once again you're out to snaffle money!"

  "Not fair Charles. I am very fond of Mark."

  "Why shouldn't you be?" he'd muttered wretchedly. "He's young and good-looking . . ."

  "Hush." She had softened, miraculously. "To me you are the more handsome. If you could provide for me in the way I have grown used to, I would marry you. But I cannot face poverty, Charles. I will tell you something. When I begged Mark that he would let me share the groundnut farm, I did it for you and me. I had heard reports of extravagant profits in groundnuts." She gave a hopeless throaty laugh. "The profit is there but it is small this first year, and not so big the second. I tried."

  "Yes . . . you tried."

  "We shall stay friends?"

  "No. The day your engagement to Mark is made public I shall leave the country."

  She was shaken. So much so that, when he took her into his arms, she had made no protest, had even clung, and he knew that at last she realised that the other women who had passed through his life were wraiths compared with herself.

  ARRIVED back at the farm, Karen found Elizabeth immersed in a new project—poultry-keeping. This was part of the expansion upon which

  Justin had figured during the years of struggle. They had always kept a few hens in a lean-to attached to the dairy but now the idea was to erect cedar henhouses, a separate incubating-shed and a mush-shed for storing and mixing the grain and potatoes and meal. The site chosen was the pasture at the end of the garden.

  As soon as arrangements were complete, a crate containing fifty threemonths-old chicks and another of young turkeys were opened into the wire-netting enclosures. Two hundred eggs were set in the trays of the incubator and an oil-stove kept burning there. Karen suddenly found herself overworked. In striped gingham and a white apron, she mixed the buckets of feed and filled the wooden troughs in the runs. The chicks had to be watered and their health watched; the eggs in the incubator must be turned and the oil-stove refilled daily. At this time, it was difficult to

  borrow Justin's boys. Most of them were out in the fields, burning and

  turning-in the stubble ready for the next crops of maize and lucerne, and

  others were finishing off the harvest of groundnuts from Mark's acreage.

  In about a fortnight, Justin would start coffee picking, and he was beginning to look anxiously at the drying-shed, and to wonder whether rats had got at the jute bags, and if it wouldn't be better to alter the arrangement of grading bins. The whole farm vibrated with the climax of the coffee season, and the several sidelines which had to be kept going.

  With childhood's bland disregard of time and convenience, Keith went down with a severe rash. Unwisely, but lavishly, he had fed upon the unripe bananas which clustered among the rich green leaves of the huge plants at the end of the orchard, with the result that practically the whole of his body was covered with red welts and he was laid out by colic. Distracted by symptoms to which at first she could attribute no cause, Elizabeth neglected dairy, chickens and housekeeping. Mrs. Harding, who had once been a children's nurse in Uganda, questioned Keith, diagnosed banana-rash and prescribed a herbal remedy. His illness lasted a full week.

  By the time Elizabeth was free of the sick-room, coffee picking had begun and there were the pickers and casual labourers to provide with rations and the ox-teams and drivers to be fed. At sundown, all outdoor work had to cease and Elizabeth, Justin and Karen slumped exhausted into their chairs, ate dinner and went to bed, often before nine, for they had to be up for six o'clock breakfast.

  Thus it was a full month after the week in Nairobi that Karen made her first visit to the club at Guaba. Justin had insisted. "We'll all go," he said. "There's that new evening get-up of Elizabeth's beginning to attract moths and all three of us hating the smell of drying coffee, chickens, and cheese. We need a change."

  "One of us must stay because of Keith," stated Elizabeth.

  "That's taken care of. Mark Howard's servant, Hanim, will come on guard for the evening."

  "You can't ask Mark a favour of that sort."

  "It's done, my sweet. I put it to Mark yesterday and he agreed to it right away. Keith adores Hanim."

  A short pause, after which Elizabeth voiced the question that trembled at the tip of Karen's tongue. "How did you see Mark yesterday? We didn't."

  "He's taken to riding the other side of the river and entering the plantation from the back. I thought I told you."

  "I don't remember. Why does he do that?"

  "He reckons it's shorter."

  "He wouldn't be trying to avoid your womenfolk, by any chance?" she inquired sarcastically.

  "Why should he? He always asks after you, but mostly he's in a hurry. That technical chap he was expecting is here, staying at Colonel

  Williamson's, and Mrs. Sanderfield comes down every weekend. Mark is teaching her to ride."

  "I suppose that means she's not returning to Sweden," said Elizabeth tartly. "Has Mark told you how much longer his bridge will take?" "About three weeks, to clear up."

  For a sickening instant, Karen's heart seemed to cease its beating.

  "After that," said her cousin equably, "he'll go wild in Nairobi for a spell and then take a contract elsewhere—unless he really does decide to go down to Johannesburg. What about his farm?"

  Justin poked speculatively at his pipe. "He mentioned that yesterday. Apparently he and the Swedish woman have to confer about it. In any case, he'll want me to go on managing the place."

  "Oh, he will!" Elizabeth was exasperated. "His is three times the acreage of ours. Why didn't you tell him that we have enough to do?"

  "Because, my dear woman," drawled Justin, twinkling, "his terms are much too generous. On the salary he's offering I can even afford an assistant and come out well on the bright side. There are plenty of young settlers begging for work on farms simply for the experience before they invest in land of their own. Mark's giving me a free hand—groundnuts alternating with mixed crops—pyrethrum, flax, maize, and so on. He talks of banana-groves and sisal later on."

  Slightly mollified, Elizabeth pondered a while before remarking grudgingly, "We're awfully lucky, really, to be Mark's nearest neighbours. This extra money will mean a first-class education for Keith as soon as he's old enough to leave us, and less scraping than we've been used to."

  "While Mark's here we'll borrow Hanim and have several nights out," Justin said carelessly. "I'm sorry I didn't think of it six months ago."

  DURING recent weeks Karen had scarcely seen Nova Lawson so, the afternoon following Justin's decision to take them to the Guaba club, she saddled Bambu and rode down to the Winchesters', hoping to arrive just as Nova came home from school.

  Evelyn, who never worked like other settlers' wives, lolled over a pile of magazines in the lounge. "Oh, hallo," she said lazily. "I can't remember the last time I saw you. Have some tea?"

  After the usual questions about young Mollie and the farm, Karen inquired for Nova. Offhandedly, Evelyn lifted her shoulders. "She's had a camp-bed put in the living-room at the school, and mostly sleeps there. Can't say that I'm sorry. That young woman is too oppressively business. like, though recently she seems to have slackened off. She's made herself a semi-evening frock, not a bad effort, either. Plenty good enough for the Guaba club."

  "Does she go there often?"

  "About once a week—on Saturdays. Roy Strasmore squires her, though I believe that's only because there aren't any other girls about. But it's had a remarkable effect on Nova's appearance." Karen's original inten-

  tion—to invite Nova to accompany them to Guaba next Saturday—was set aside. Let Roy go on taking her to the club.

  She talked for a while to Evelyn, laughingly declined a half-serious invitation to join an expedition to the snowline on Kenya, and eventually got back to the little native pony and trotted home between the wild figs and flowering creepers.

  "Roy doesn't bother us much," she remarked to Elizabeth that evening.

  "
He came up while you were in town. He's finished with the glamorous Glenys and bought a new car on the strength of that and an increase in salary. He was very fluffed with himself and said I must be sure to tell you but, what with banana-rash, chickens, and the rest, I forgot." After a short silence she added, "The two of them seem to have shut you out of the school entirely, for which I'm jolly thankful. I really don't know how we'd manage without you, now."

  That was Elizabeth's way of phrasing her disapproval of Nova. But Karen couldn't blame the other girl. Both she and Roy were salaried and keen on their profession and she herself, a voluntary helper, could have no permanent place in their schemes. The farm chores were a little more to her taste. Yet when she thought back over the school's inception she felt a brief pang, and guiltily wished herself back in the early days, when she and Keith enjoyed lessons on the veranda and spent afternoons wandering down to the river or to the Snake Hole. And when Mark was half exciting dream and half beloved reality.

  They drove in to Guaba early on Saturday. There was plenty of time for a short stroll along the main street, two parallel lines of stores, a post office, and a small Government building. Half a dozen avenues of houses encircled the shopping centre and to avoid dirt and noise the railway junction-was a mile away from the town.

  Guaba was the typical up-country township set amid plains where game roved in herds and farms were widely spaced. It would grow, as all such places grow, and, in a very short while, the blue-gums planted along the roads would provide much needed shade. Just now, in the darkness, with only a few lights burning and a nip in the air, the township had an arid, starved appearance.

  Inside the club, however, the atmosphere was distinctly warm and friendly. The dinner, simple but excellently cooked and served, provided such a change from shamba food that the dining-room was crammed most of the evening. There was a billiards room, table tennis, whist and bridge, and in a long, newly erected annexe one could dance to amplified gramophone music.

  Karen joined in an impromptu table-tennis tournament, and after an inglorious defeat accepted her partner's invitation 'to dance. "We may do better at that," the young man said humorously. "We can't do worse." So they danced and he fetched her a drink, and then they danced again. Karen saw Elizabeth stepping round with Justin and other men, laughing-

  eyed, her cheeks aglow. She looked so young and sparkling that Karen was reminded of the girl she had hero-worshipped as a child,

  The ballroom, thick with smoke and incredibly hot, filled to capacity. Karen slipped outside. In the garden she discovered a pool ringed by tree-ferns about whose roots grew balsams and blue lilies. A lovely, awesome spot cupped within outcrops of granite rock. Strange to think that it must have been here long before Guaba was thought about, an unknown patch of natural beauty now incorporated into the club grounds.

  She heard a sound and turned; Roy's laugh was familiar. But she did not see him at once. Then, near a young cedar a little way off, she glimpsed two figures, Roy's and a woman's. His laugh sounded again but its quality had changed, gained intimacy. Before Karen could move it happened. An embrace that wrenched at the core of her being. She fled over the grass and up to the terrace. Halted for breath, she could not resist looking back the way she had come. The couple were drifting towards the club, arms closely linked. The woman was Nova. Nova, in sapphire georgette and her black hair flowing. Karen backed into the shadows. So already they had reached that stage. 'The magic of Africa,' she thought bitterly, 'that bewitches everyone except me.' The next moment, she reproached herself. This was just what she had hoped for Nova.

  ELIZABETH and Karen were packing the surplus fruit for dispatch to a cannery in Nairobi. "This has been our luckiest year yet," said

  Elizabeth, slipping a sheet of tissue over the bottom of a shallow box. "Last year we hadn't any fruit to speak of, and the year before the apricots and the peaches had worm. Isn't it nice to think of all this stuff going to England?"

  "It certainly is."

  Jimmy came out to the shed with the news that bwana Strasmore had arrived. "Go in and talk to Roy, pet," said Elizabeth. "Give him a cup of tea and send me a tray."

  Roy, spread in a lounge chair near the open french window of the living-room, gave her a preoccupied smile.

  "Don't get up—you look so relaxed."

  "I wish I felt that way," he said, as she sank into the centre of the chesterfield.

  "We were fruit packing—Elizabeth's finishing off. It isn't often we see you in the middle of the week, Roy."

  "Or at all," he said. "You must think me a bit of a blighter, Karen, for not coming since you've been back from Nairobi, but the time has just slid by."

  "I understand."

  "You always do," with a grateful grin. "That's why I'm here today—to unload into your receptive ear."

  "Not about the school, surely?"

  "No," he answered emphatically. "Our Miss Lawson is only too competent at running the school. It's a private problem. You know," the grin was embarrassed now, "a matter of Cupid's dart."

  She nodded sympathetically. "Nova?"

  "Yes, Nova. Has she told you about that fellow in Cape Town?"

  "I gathered that she lost her head over someone and was completely disillusioned. But if you're in love with her—"

  "She's off marriage."

  "Your persistence will win her over."

  "It's funny about Nova," he said. "When I boarded with the Lawsons, I used often to look at her photograph and think that one day she'd be some man's handful. But most of the fire has been quenched. All she wants is to vegetate and teach children, which suits me, too, though I'd rather a couple of the infants were my own."

  "Naturally, you would. It'll come, Roy. Give her time."

  Presently, Elizabeth came in and Karen set aside her cup and plate. "It's been a lovely break," she said, "but the chicks will be cheeping their heads off for their supper."

  Roy would have gone with her but Elizabeth detained him. "Do me a favour, will you? Drop in at the Winchesters' on your way home and tell John my fruit is ready to go with his tomorrow morning. I'll send it down before dark. And Roy," her tone lowered though by now Karen had left the house, "we're giving a little birthday party for Karen on Friday week. Dinner at seven and a dance and sing-song. Will you bring Nova, and ask that young colleague of yours to come as well? There'll be the Hardings and the Winchesters and one or two others—about sixteen altogether."

  "Thanks. I'm glad you didn't leave me out, much as I deserve it."

  ALMOST every day a lorry load of cement or equipment passed the farm on its way from Grassy to the storehouses in Nairobi. Keith,

  who had ridden down last Sunday, said that 'Old Bill', the huge armchair, had disappeared from Mark's house. The rest of the furniture he proposed to leave for the use of himself and anyone else needing a lodge for safaris. Hanim brought to the farm a large case full of books and gramophone records. From him Karen learned that his master was now in Nairobi. Shortly, when the whole bridge was cleared and the construction camp demolished, he would come back for a final inspection and, after that .. . Hanim lifted expressive shoulders and smiled with his usual composure.

  On Saturday morning, a note came from Colonel Williamson, inviting Karen to lunch and tennis. Her first impulse was to refuse; she felt so entirely out of key with Charles and his world. But Elizabeth coaxed her into changing her mind.

  "I'm very pleased you could manage to come," Charles greeted her.

  "We've met so seldom lately. I've called in at the Guaba club a few times but apparently missed you. Shall we lunch in the garden?"

  The thick shade of the Cape chestnut was pleasant, the meal light and well served and, if Charles's humour held a note of constraint, he was still suave and charming. They walked in the cedar forest behind the house, crossed a rivulet by stepping-stones, and climbed a wooded slope where the puff-ball blossom of the gums splashed scarlet between the sere gold of fading mimosa. On a felled camphor-tree they rested. Abo
ut their feet seeped mauve and pink balsams and delicate ferns, with here and there a cascade of maidenhair veiling a patch of wild orchids. "This is a breathtaking country," she said. "I shall never forget it."

  "It has almost everything in its favour," he agreed, "but chiefly for the young. I must be getting old, I think. The everlasting sunshine and profuse growth are beginning to tease my nerves. Except for leaving my friends, I shan't be sorry to turn my back on Kenya."

  "When Will that be?"

  "Within the next couple of months, but I've promised to give up this house in two weeks' time."

  "So soon? I'm sorry."

  He smiled at her. "I hope it's true—that you're sorry. You're very sweet, Karen, and you've helped me more than you realise."

  She laughed, a little ruefully. "That seems to be my vocation. It's going to be lonely in these parts, with you gone—and the bridge finished." She hesitated before asking, "Has Mark decided about Johannesburg yet?"

  "I believe cables are passing backwards and forwards. It's a tempting proposition that he can't ignore. And there's Inga, of course." Frightening, the way he said it, coupling Inga and the business proposition.

  "Is Mrs. Sanderfield still living in Mark's house?"

  "No, she's with friends now, and Mark is established in the house but the arrangement isn't likely to last long." His voice dropped a tone. "Isn't it odd how some men have everything? Not that one grudges Mark the reward of his own toil, but—" He broke off. "Pay no attention to my grousing. Perhaps I'm feeling sore at leaving Kenya. Shall we go back and try out the tennis court?"

  CHARLES did not again refer to leaving the country till he was driving ES home soon after tea. "I shall be busy packing and disposing of

  surplus goods for the next two weeks," he said, "but I'll make time to slip over and say goodbye to Mr. and Mrs. Paterson. I'm counting on meeting you in Nairobi before I saiL"

  "I can't promise to come."

  "But you must, my dear. You must be among the guests at my farewell dinner."