The Bonds of Matrimony

by Elizabeth Hunter

  She woke to the sound of hyenas howling outside, in a fright lest Benedict should have returned and found her asleep on his bed. She leaped to her feet and rushed to her own bed, barely pausing to shut the door into the dressing-room. She had never locked it, right from the beginning, and it wouldn’t have occurred to her to do so now. She trusted him. But she thought about locking it now as she lay in the dark, her heart thudding as she listened to the hyenas still howling into the night. It was silly of her to think that Benedict might have come back. He wasn’t coming back until the next evening and he had warned her that he would be very late then.

  She was still awake when the sun came up, heralding the start of a new day. It was perfectly reasonable to her that the Africans, like the Romans before them, counted the first hour of the day from six o’clock in the morning and not from midnight. In a few minutes Koinange would be hammering on the door to be let in to make her breakfast, and then it would be time to start work again. She sighed at the thought, stretching her aching limbs. What she wouldn’t give for a shower!

  The lorry began playing up in the middle of the afternoon. It was over-heating badly and she had no idea what to do about it. She poured water into the radiator with a liberal hand, but it boiled almost immediately and she was back where she had started. One of the African drivers came over and had a look at it for her, but he was no wiser than she when it came to the intricacies of the internal combustion engine.

  ‘It’s dead,’ he said, with a shrug that was meant to imply that it was of no further interest to anyone.

  ‘It is certainly dead,’ she agreed, ‘but we have to get it going again.’

  ‘When the bwana comes back, he will make it live again!’

  ‘No, now!’ she insisted.

  A long discussion followed that brought very little in the way of results, and Hero was in despair. She drooped over the bonnet of the lorry, her head in her hands, wondering what to do next. When she looked up, she was surprised to see a Land-Rover coming towards them, the dust rising high into the air behind it, higher even than the trees that still grew by the side of the track. It was rather less of a surprise to see Benedict climb out of the driving seat.

  ‘You’re early!’ she said.

  ‘Just as well, by the look of things. Move over, and I’ll have a look.’

  She did so with a weariness that she could not hide. She leaned against the heavy door of the cabin and shut her eyes, easing her back against the hot metal. She was quite unprepared when suddenly she felt his hands grasp her by the arms, pulling her close against him.

  ‘Little fool!’ he admonished her. ‘Get into the Land-Rover and I’ll take you back to the house. I suppose you’ve been working all the hours under the sun ever since I left!’

  She would have liked to have argued with him, but honesty compelled her to admit he was right. She had worked every daylight hour that had been available to her.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ she protested. ‘The rains may come any time now. They’re late already. Supposing we haven’t finished trucking the soil by then? Have you any idea of what these tracks are like when they’re wet?’

  Though that was a silly question, she thought. He probably knew much more about it than she did.

  ‘You don’t have to kill yourself in the process! You’ll get to England just as quickly if you take it gently, my girl. And you’ll find it much easier if you resign yourself for once to doing as you’re told.’

  ‘By you, of course!’ she retorted ‘By me!’

  She tossed up in her mind the wisdom of demanding why she should, and decided against it. He looked in the mood to tell her.

  ‘Didn’t things go well in the Sudan?’ she asked him, giving the Land-Rover a mutinous look that she didn’t quite dare to address to him.

  ‘Well enough.’

  ‘Then why are you so cross?’

  ‘Am I?’ He smiled slowly. ‘You should take a good look at yourself in the glass when we get to the house and you’ll, see why! Besides, I was expecting you to be on the verandah, waiting for me.’

  ‘Were you?’ She was astonished that he should have thought of such a thing. ‘But I didn’t expect you for hours yet!’

  ‘Well, now you can spend the evening in your bed and I’ll wait on you for a change. Didn’t you sleep at all last night? Were you afraid, being in the house on your own?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘I’d prefer the truth, Hero!’

  ‘It is the truth! I’m used to being on my own. I’ve had a whole year to get used to it!’ Tears stung the back of her eyes and she was furious with herself for giving way to such frivolous nonsense. ‘I thought you’d be pleased!’

  ‘Well, now you know I’m not! Get in, Hero, and don’t waste any more time or you’ll fall down and then I’ll have to carry you, and I somehow think you wouldn’t like that very much!’

  She got into the Land-Rover as quickly as she could. ‘Now you’re being ridiculous!’ she gasped.

  ‘And what are you being?’

  She glared at him. ‘That’s the last time I try to help you! You can do it all yourself from now on!’

  He slid into the seat behind the steering-wheel. ‘Finished?’ he asked her.

  She nodded her head, not trusting herself to speak.

  ‘Good, because I have something to say to you and I want you to listen to every word. Are you listening?’

  She nodded again. ‘But—’

  ‘Listen! I should have laid down the law a great deal earlier, but now will do as well as later. If you want to help with the work on the farm, we’ll work out a schedule that’ll fit in with everything else you have to do-‘

  ‘I haven’t anything else to do!’

  ‘You have the house to see to and, as my wife, you have my clothes to keep in order as well as your own.’ He cast her a mocking look. ‘That ought to appeal to you, at least, seeing you have such strong ideas on the subject! Koinange says you skipped lunch altogether yesterday and that today you took a few sandwiches with you that you probably forgot to eat. In future, it will be your job to see that meals appear on time and that they are eaten properly - whether I’m here or not! Is that understood?’

  ‘I’m not a child!’ she protested.

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Twelve years younger than you are,’ she said without

  thought. ‘Hardly a baby!’

  ‘Then don’t behave like one!’

  ‘I don’t! I mean, I’m not! I often go without lunch. I don’t want to get fat and it saves going on a diet to miss a meal every now and then—’ The look he gave her brought her up short. ‘It was lonely after you’d gone,’ she said. ‘Is that what you want to hear?’

  ‘If it’s the truth.’ He was silent for a minute. ‘How do you know how old I am?’

  ‘I just do!’

  ‘Betsy, I suppose?’

  Hero found that she didn’t like the idea of her friend knowing such a detail about Benedict. She hunched her shoulders, refusing to be drawn, and pretended an interest in the road ahead that she was far from feeling. She wanted to ask him what he had done in the Sudan, but his forbidding expression made that impossible to her. She decided to tackle him about the lorry instead, though even that gave her a nervous feeling at the pit of her stomach.

  ‘What made the lorry overheat like that?’ she asked.

  ‘Probably a broken fan-belt. Did you think of that?’

  She shook her head. ‘I’m not mechanically minded. Can you fix it?’

  ‘I expect so. I’ll bring it in while you’re getting to bed. Tell Koinange to bring you a tray of tea in your room and a cup for me too. I shan’t be long.’

  She looked at him quickly, half in and half out of the Land-Rover. ‘I don’t mind coming out on to the verandah,’ she said.

  ‘You’ll get into bed all the same! Don’t worry if you’re asleep by the time I get back. I’ll wake you up for dinner if you are.’

  But she wa
s quite determined that she wouldn’t sleep at all. It was a blessed relief to be inside the shuttered coolness of the house, though she wouldn’t have admitted that to him either, and to shed her clothes for the coolness of the new nightie she had finished making. It was even more of a relief to lie on her bed and drink the tea that Koinange brought to her, shaking his head and rolling his eyes at her, almost as though he welcomed the trouble she had got into with Benedict.

  ‘Traitor!’ Hero mouthed at his back as he left the room.

  ‘U gomvi huleta matata!’ he retorted. ‘Quarrelling brings trouble! He is a good man, Memsahib Hero.’ ‘He thinks he knows everything!’

  ‘He is the bwana mkubwa, the big man!’ Koinange answered with a shrug. ‘Naturally he knows!’

  Hero lay back against the pillows, covering herself with a sheet in case Benedict should come in as he had threatened. She couldn’t bring herself to believe that he wouldn’t give her any warning, but she was beginning to think that she might sleep after all.

  In fact, she was dozing when he came and she scarcely heard his soft knock at the door.

  ‘Njoo!’ she murmured sleepily.

  His head came round the door, followed more slowly by the rest of him. ‘Good girl!’ he said approvingly as he looked down at her. ‘Why aren’t you asleep?’ He poured himself a cup of tea and looked round for somewhere to sit, finally making for the door into the dressing-room.

  ‘Don’t go!’ she said.

  ‘Don’t you want to sleep?’

  ‘I’d rather talk - or read. I’m not accustomed to sleeping in the middle of the day.’

  ‘You look a good deal better than you did, all the same!’ he told her. He looked at the bare shelf beside her bed. ‘You don’t seem to have much to read,’ he said. ‘Shall I fetch you something?’

  She smiled her acceptance, wondering what his choice would be. He went into the dressing-room, leaving his cup on the tray. She could hear him opening a suitcase in the room next door and then a sudden silence that she couldn’t account for. In another instant he was back, her copy of his book in his hand.

  ‘Well, young woman, I think you have some explaining to do!’ he said from the end of her bed.

  ‘I don’t see why,’ she muttered. ‘I was reading it last

  night—’

  ‘In my bed?’

  ‘It was the light,’ she said, clutching at the first straw that came to her. ‘I couldn’t get mine to work properly.’

  Benedict’s look told her that he didn’t believe a word of it. He took the funnel off the lamp and lit it with his lighter. Together they watched the wick catch and flare into a bright flame. Benedict raised an eyebrow and waited for her explanation. ‘Well, Hero?’

  ‘Koinange—’ she began, but she could see as well as he that it wouldn’t do. She wouldn’t put it past him to ask the African if he had trimmed the lamp, and he would be sure to say no.

  ‘I went to the bookshop to show the boys my wedding dress,’ she said instead. ‘I was curious what the book was that you hadn’t wanted me to look at before. When I saw you had written it, I bought it - or at least I borrowed the money from Betsy to buy it. I’d forgotten all about it! Oh, Benedict, may I have a hundred shillings to repay her at

  once? I can get it from the bank next time I go to Isiolo, but I’d rather send it to her straight away.’

  He felt in his pocket and handed her the money ‘Keep it,’ he said. ‘I’d have given it to you myself if I’d known you really wanted to read it.’ He turned it over to look at the photograph of himself on the back. ‘But why my bed?’

  She didn’t know how to answer that. ‘This one’s so big!’

  ‘When you write to Betsy, you’d better ask her to come as soon as she can,’ he said dryly. Tell her we both feel in the need of some company.’

  ‘But she won’t come!’ Hero stated. ‘She never has in all the years I’ve known her.’

  Benedict’s eyes met hers. ‘Oh, she’ll come,’ he said. ‘She’ll come running! You don’t have to worry about, that!’

  ‘Because you ask her to?’ She couldn’t quite keep the resentment out of her voice.

  ‘Something like that,’ he drawled.

  Hero slept as well that night as she had slept badly the night before. It was cold in the night too, making her wonder if the rains might not be coming after all. There were some clouds all along the horizon in the morning, but they were too far away to be of much interest, and the sun burned as hotly as ever over the farm.

  ‘What are you going to do today?’ Benedict asked her as she sat down for breakfast.

  Hero spread her napkin across her knees with nervous fingers. ‘Truck some more topsoil back onto the fields.’ She looked across the table at him. ‘If I may?’ she added.

  ‘This morning,’ he agreed. ‘I’m going to surround the foot of some of the trees with piles of stones to try and catch the morning dew for them. The stones should hold the moisture and let some of it get down to the roots.’

  ‘Like they did in the Bible,’ Hero said.

  ‘Did they? I didn’t know that. I believe they’ve tried it with some success in modern Israel. Perhaps that’s where they got the idea from.’

  ‘May I help?’ Hero asked, even more cautiously than before.

  ‘I thought you were going to write your letter. You could take it into Isiolo and post it there. There are some supplies I want picked up there some time. You could bring them back with you.’

  ‘We get most of our supplies from Nanyuki. They come up from Nairobi on the train—’

  ‘I think you’ll be able to get most of these things in Isiolo.’ He looked at her thoughtfully across the table. ‘Nanyuki is too far for you to go by yourself.’

  ‘But I’ve often been!’

  ‘As Hero Kaufman. Now you’re Hero Carmichael, I prefer you to have company on a long drive like that.’ He smiled slowly. ‘I have a fancy to go with you to the Siverbeck Hotel and have a drink in the —World- famous Equator Line Bar”, with a foot on either hemisphere.’

  ‘With me?’

  ‘Don’t look so surprised. Any pretty girl would do!’

  ‘Then you’d better wait for Betsy to come!’ she answered back.

  He put his head on one side, considering the matter. ‘You might enjoy it more than you think. We could spend a night at Treetops or the Ark and come back the next day.’

  Hero was tempted, but she was aware of the difficulties of pretending to be a normal husband and wife in such circumstances if he was not. There would be people there who would know her, as they had known her parents before her, and how would she explain Benedict away to them, no matter how sympathetic they were to her want to acquire the right to live in England.

  ‘We’d have to share a room,’ she said.

  ‘Would that be so bad?’

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘Most husbands and wives do!’ he pointed out.

  ‘We’re not most people!’ The recollection that he had said it was one of his ambitions to have a son added to Hero’s discomfort.

  ‘That didn’t stop you sleeping in my bed,’ he pointed out in such reasonable tones that the dawning suspicion that he was teasing her died almost as soon as it had presented itself.

  ‘But you weren’t there.’

  ‘Would it have made any difference?’

  ‘Of course it would!’ She could hardly believe that the conversation was taking place. ‘I couldn’t —’

  ‘Oh, Hero, are you sure?’ She watched fascinated as he rose to his feet and came round the table towards her. ‘Are you quite, quite sure?’ he said again.

  She had no idea how it came about, but she must have stood up too, for she felt his hands on the small of her back and then his arms were right round her, and he had a hand behind her head, holding her very close to him.

  ‘If you hadn’t looked so exhausted, I would have done this yesterday,’ he said in her ear. ‘You looked up with those damned Greek eyes of y
ours and you were pleased to see me, don’t pretend you weren’t!’

  ‘What if I was?’ she whispered. ‘I thought you’d fix the

  lorry!’

  ‘Did you? Did you indeed? Well, lorries were not on my agenda.’

  Her murmured protest was lost against his lips, though she made little effort to escape, so tightly did he hold her. He buried his fingers into her hair and brought her mouth back to his, parting her lips with his own, suddenly hard and masterful, kissing her how and as often as he liked. Hero slipped her arms up round his shoulders. She clung to him knowing that she ought to break free, wondering that the touch of his hands as they caressed her should command her response as surely as if she had been some puppet who could only move if he pulled the strings.

  ‘Benedict—’

  He put a hand slightly over her lips and she kissed the scarred fingers that had always intrigued her.

  ‘Benedict, I can’t —’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I can’t love you!’

  He kissed her again with a passion that overwhelmed her before letting her go, his hands lightly resting on her shoulders.

  ‘I don’t think you know much about love, though, do you, Liebling?’ He turned suddenly away from her. ‘Write your letter to Betsy, Hero, and get it posted, I think we’ll both be glad to have some other people around for a while. Am I right?’

  She felt very inexperienced and vulnerable. Did he -could he possibly know how much she had liked the helpless sensation of being on the receiving end of his kiss? Mustn’t he now realize that he could so casually bind her to his whim because she couldn’t believe that it was more than that - with bonds as real as if they had been forged in

  steel?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  HERO hadn’t understood a word Benedict had said. She puzzled over it all morning and could hardly bring herself to come to the lunch table at all. He couldn’t want her to be a real wife to him, because he had told her that he was in love with somebody else. A pretty little snake, asleep in the sun, was how he had described this other girl, and he had also said she was rather a darling. Hero couldn’t imagine such a combination, but she thought that Benedict might well be attracted to such a mixture, and if he had been referring to Betsy she could understand the attraction. Betsy was pretty enough, and she liked her place in the sun, and there was always a spice of danger in her company because if she saw a warmer place to bask in, she would be up and away without a qualm for her former admirer. If Benedict thought he could take her to his hand, drawing the fangs with which she was apt to dismiss those who displeased her, then Benedict was welcome to her!