The whispering Palms

by Mariska

  "You mustn't. It would worry him." Lesley smiled. "He's always had a sort of amazed pride in Virginia, and he really feels that life is complete now that he has her with him. She's always been terribly independent, and it makes him feel wonderful to be able to give her things she was never quite able to afford herself. She used to have lovely clothes and run a car, but the clothes were only of the business and cocktail type, and the car belonged to the firm she worked for."

  "So she can enjoy herself and peacock around as much as she likes, while you still go about in faded slacks and shirts!"

  "I happen to feel comfy in slacks and shirts, and she doesn't. Honestly, Anna, I don't envy her a scrap."

  "I hope not!" She paused. "Look here, Lesley, come over and stay with us for a week or two. If your father and sister are happy together they won't mind, and it would give you a break and help you to decide what you're going to do with yourself."

  Lesley was tempted. It would be so pleasant to stay with Anna and Bill and their sturdy little son, but she ought to think it over from all angles first. "You're a darling, Anna," she said impulsively. "I'll sleep on it and let you know."

  She got back into the saddle and guided Bessie, her mare, down the road between the tea bushes. It was very quiet everywhere. The tea thrived in regimental rows which sloped away over the hillside, and beyond them only the humps of the mountains were visible, misted blue and gold with the westering sun. At the Amanzi boundary she looked at her watch. It was four-thirty, and Virginia would, as usual, be having tea in bed before taking a bath and dressing for this evening's guests. Lesley turned the mare, rode along the boundary for half a mile, and entered Amanzi by the new gate near the quarry. No one was working today, of course. Lesley rode on as far as Neville's log dwelling, which had once been the tobacco-curing shed, and dismounted. Probably he was

  out. Lately he had been coming less and less often to the farmhouse, and he hadn't encouraged her to come again to the quarry. Fernando was at the bottom of it, Lesley thought; Virginia, too.

  She tapped on the wooden door and heard nothing, tapped again with a similar result. She was about to call Bessie when she was stopped by a creaking sound on the other side of the door. Sharply she called, "Are you there, Neville?" and without waiting for an answer she turned the handle and walked in. He was lying in bed; his face was pale and glistening, the lips white and drawn in. "Run away, there's a good girl," he said thickly.

  She did nothing of the sort. Instead she closed the door behind her and came to his bedside. "You're ill," she said, concerned. Then, more urgently, "You're very ill. Neville, why didn't you send up to the house? You can't lie here like this!"

  "It's nothing—just a return of fever. Leave me alone."

  "I won't. I'll get Dr. Waterson."

  "It's no good. He's down south, golfing. I've got over this before without assistance. Run along." Before he had finished speaking his teeth had begun to chatter so uncontrollably that he stuttered. He gave her a washed-out, apologetic grin.

  "If you've had it before, you know what to do for it," she said practically. "Tell me and I'll do it."

  "Blankets and barley-water," he managed. "A rip-roaring sweat."

  A few seconds later she was in the saddle racing up to the house. Bessie, astonished at being allowed the run of the garden path, pulled up with a whinny at the back door, and Lesley flew inside to collect blankets, towels, and a bottle of lemon barley-water from the cooler. In no time at all she was back at the log hut, piling the blankets over Neville, wiping his face and neck and slipping an arm under his head while he drank, his teeth rattling against the glass like castanets. His rigors were really frightening, and once or twice he said something unintelligible, as if his mind were elsewhere. At one moment he looked at her strangely and said, "I'll bet Virginia would scoot for her life if she saw me like this. Don't bring her here, will you?"

  Lesley didn't remind him that Virginia wouldn't come to the log but in any circumstances. She gave him another drink and his tablets, dabbed away the continual sweat and turned the pillow. He closed his eyes, but she knew he wasn't sleeping.

  She stood back anxiously, and stared about the room. It couldn't be good for him to lie there in a bath of sweat. He needed a fresh pillow and a change of pyjamas and sheets. There ought to be a man here with him; but her father wasn't equal to it. As she came to the end of the staccato succession of thoughts, Lesley went closer to the bed. Yes, she could leave him now for a little while and make some sort of arrangement for the evening and night. She became aware that sweat was coursing down her own back, and decided to make another hurried trip to the house.

  VIRGINIA was in the living-room when Lesley appeared, drifting from one bowl of flowers to the other and rearranging the blossoms here and

  there. She wore a clinging frock of rose-pink silk. Her high-heeled sandals were white and dainty, her wrists and ankles small-boned and delicate. In her extreme fairness she was like a subtropical flower. She looked at Lesley with some displeasure. "Need you have come back so late? We have people coming for cocktails and a buffet supper—remember?"

  "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you'll have to get along without me. I prepared the cocktail snacks before I went out, and Solomon will get the supper. He knows what you're having."

  "What are you getting at? Surely you're not going back to the Pembertons?"

  "No. Neville is ill." Briefly she gave details, and finished, "So I've come back here to change my dress and get some food. After that I'll have to find a boy to go down there with me."

  "You'll do nothing of the sort!" exclaimed Virginia angrily. "How do you know he hasn't picked up something contagious? He's always with the Africans at the quarry. We don't want fever in the house!"

  "You won't get it. It's malaria, or something similar. He's had it before, and from what I've heard about the fever, the rigors he's having are typical. I'm not leaving him down there alone, for you or anyone else."

  "We'll see about that!" Virginia moved swiftly to the door, but Lesley was there first, barring her way. "Let me pass, you little fool!"

  "So that you can tell Father? What good would that do? He'd agree with me that Neville mustn't be left alone; in fact, he'd go down there himself."

  Virginia paused, her mouth tight and her eyes narrowed. Perhaps it occurred to her that Lesley was right about Edward Norton: he was notoriously kind-hearted. "All right," she said coldly, grudgingly. `We'll keep it from Father until tomorrow, anyway. We don't want to spoil our evening. But I must say you're acting like a child. If Neville doesn't have to eat or take medicine more often than every four hours, I don't see why you need stay with him. You could be here and supervise the supper if you liked."

  A sharp sense of revolt rose in Lesley. She spoke abruptly. "I'll prepare the supper if you'll sit with Neville while I do it."

  Virginia shuddered and flung round, away from the door. "He's your boy friend, not mine. The less I hear about him the better!"

  Lesley, her heart beating fast, went along to the small bedroom. She washed, then crossed to her bedroom to put on a clean cotton dress. In the kitchen she cut some bread-and-butter, scooped a portion of cheese from the soft mound in the fridge, took a couple of the savouries she had prepared, wrapped the lot in a napkin and returned to the cabin.

  Neville appeared to be more or less as she had left him, except that he muttered occasionally. Lesley hunted through his few books, found one

  dealing with tropical ailments, and read the chapter on malaria. In a recurrence of the fever, she learned, the chief danger was from a chill caught during or just after the most shattering of the rigors. 'Very well,' she thought. 'At all costs we'll protect him from a chill.'

  She found a thriller and read until the light failed, when she set a match to the single lamp and ate a little of the bread and cheese. She didn't get round to finishing the meal, because Neville had another shivering spasm which brought him wide awake, and this time he really was delirious. He drank again
, seemed unable to stop drinking, and again the sweat ran in rivers, so that even his hair was black with it. Exhausted, he closed his eyes. She tucked the blankets about his chin with a care that disguised the panic she was feeling. It was all very well for Neville to say he had been through it all before and would come through. She wouldn't mind so much if the doctor had seen him and pronounced the shiverings and the delirium normal.

  It was just on nine. She got Neville to swallow more quinine, and covered him closely. He was quieter now, but those drenched pyjamas and sheets bothered Lesley. Outside in the warm, starry darkness, she scanned the house. The supper would be over, and the guests would be dispersed in talking groups. Being Sunday, it was not likely they would stay late, and one of, them, surely, would be glad to drive down to Buenda and bring back the doctor. Bessie, of course, had strayed off to the pasture, so there was nothing for it but to walk the quarter of a mile to the house. Virginia would be furious, but that couldn't be helped.

  She went through the trees to the pasture and up the path, whistling intermittently to the horses. But Bessie had had enough; diplomatically she remained out of sight. Then, just ahead, Lesley saw the advancing figure of a man in a white dinner-jacket, and she began to run and stumble up the slope. Simultaneously with the urge to hurry came the knowledge that the man was Fernando. No other man was so lithe in his movements. She stopped in front of him, breathless, gripped both his arms in a rush of joy and relief. He stared down at her, held her shoulders so that her hands had to drop, and bit out something that sounded furious and very Spanish. "What are you doing here?" he demanded. "Did no one escort you home?"

  "Home?" she echoed dazedly.

  "Virginia said you have been to the Pembertons for tea. Did you not stay with them for dinner?" He glanced over the top of her head at the thatched roof of the cabin showing above the trees. His voice was ice. "It is not possible that you would be so foolish as to spend an evening there with Neville! Careless though he is, I do not believe he would permit you to do so."

  It took her a moment to realise that Fernando knew nothing. She said "Why did you come, here?"

  "From the veranda of your house I saw the light of the cabin, and I thought I would like a word with Neville about the digging."

  "I have been with Neville . . ." His fingers tightened quite brutally over

  her shoulders, and she winced and gasped a little laugh. "Please! Let me explain."

  It had to be said all over again, but Fernando's reaction was nothing like Virginia's. Long before she had reached the end, he had an arm under hers and was propelling her back to the log hut. "How long have you been with him?"

  "It was around five when I found him, and he was quite lucid then. He did try to turn me out, but I wouldn't go."

  "No, you would not," he said, with mingled annoyance and understanding. "You are not to worry about this. I have seen him with malaria, and we can only go on doing what you have already done."

  They were inside Neville's room now, and Fernando was bending over his inert cousin. He laid the back of his hand to the wet brow, and gave Lesley an impersonal but reassuring smile. "Do not be anxious for him. I will stay here with him tonight, and by tomorrow he will be over the worst. Now I must take you back to the house and make my apologies to your sister. I will also borrow some cushions from you. This chair of Neville's does not look accommodating!"

  There could surely be no other man, thought Lesley half in despair, who had that knack of imbuing the most outlandish situation with a natural calm.

  AS Lesley and Fernando made their way back to the house, Fernando had questions to ask. "What made you call upon Neville when you

  left the Pembertons? It seems to me you are too intrigued by the unconventional situation."

  "I haven't seen the quarry lately, so I rode that way. I couldn't pass the cabin without knocking."

  "Being alone, you could certainly pass it!"

  "Well, I didn't. I hadn't seen him for some time."

  "You are missing Neville these days?"

  "Missing him?"

  "He only calls upon invitation, as I do, does he not?"

  "Yes," she answered slowly. "Did you arrange that?"

  "I did, at your sister's request. She, as well as I, was concerned at the friendship which was developing between you. You see, Lesley, neither she nor I would like to see you form an unhappy attachment for any man. We agreed that Neville could never make you really happy."

  With an odd harshness in her throat she said, "You and Virginia must have some wonderful discussions. I suppose it's no use asking to be left out of them?"

  He gave her arm a peremptory shake. "How quick you are to lose your temper. And how very untrusting. Tell me, why did you not acquaint your sister with the fact of Neville's illness? She must have been disturbed when you had not arrived home before dark."

  Lesley would have liked to make an inquiry of her own. What was at the bottom of Virginia's secrecy about Fernando's visits? She had said nothing at all about his coming this evening.

  They were in the garden, and instinctively she made for the back door. But before they reached it Virginia had seen them and was crossing the lawn. "So you've found her!" The exclamation was a shade off-key, and the green glance glittered a warning at Lesley. But she took her sister's loyalty for granted. "Darling, where have you been?"

  It was Fernando, this time, who did the explaining, and Lesley who listened woodenly, while she watched the appropriate shades of sympathy pass across Virginia's face. How strange, she reflected abstractedly, yet with a roughness in her throat, to love a sister and despise her at the same time. She moved away from them, saying off-handedly, "I'll send Solomon to help at the but with Neville. The clean sheets are in the bottom' drawer of the chest, and his pyjamas are in the second drawer."

  Virginia's hard, brittle tones echoed after her. "Don't mind Lesley's sharpness, Fernando. She's upset over Neville, and can't help showing her feelings. Please tell me if there's anything I can do."

  Fifteen minutes later, after she had made a flask of coffee, given it to Solomon and sent him off to the hut, Lesley went to bed. Lying in the darkness she heard the cars depart and her father locking up. Lights were switched off, her father called good night, and the house grew quiet. Odd to know that Fernando was so near. What was he doing? she wondered. Reading and dozing, and rousing at intervals to administer drink and medicine? Did he come out into the darkness for a breather, and look up at the low-hanging stars? And what did he think about? His great powerhouse, or his island of mountains and waterfalls, or Virginia? Possibly all three, she thought bitterly, or only the last two.

  It was a long time before she slept, and still dark when she awoke. Her watch said four-thirty-five, and she got up quietly and went to the kitchen. As usual, Solomon had left everything ready for early tea, so she lit the paraffin ring under the kettle and returned to her bedroom to put on a frock. She prepared the tea methodically, slipped on an old tweed coat, unlocked the back door and picked up the tray. It seemed a long walk in the dark, particularly as she had to be careful of the stones in the path. At the cabin she stopped, her mouth dry and her pulses knocking. The curtained window beside the door showed a small light, but it did not beckon. It took real courage to support one edge of the tray in the crevice between two logs while she knocked. The door was opened, Fernando gave her a narrow, unsurprised stare, and took the tray. He had discarded his jacket and tie, but he didn't look tired, merely sharp-eyed and withdrawn.

  "I thought you'd like some tea," she said awkwardly in an undertone.

  "Thank you. Perhaps you will pour it for me."

  She looked towards the bed, and saw that the sleeping Neville had been propped up on two pillows and that his colour was better. Without speaking, she took the cosy from the pot and poured the tea.

  He took the cup and looked down at her coolly, dispassionately. "I am drinking this because you were good enough to bring it. Do not take it that I approve of your walking a
ll that way with a tea-tray, in the dark. Your intentions are good, but occasionally you behave with an utter lack of thought."

  "The night must have seemed awfully long to you. I daresay you'd rather have had coffee but . . ."

  "I would rather you had stayed away," he said curtly. "What you really came for was a look at Neville, was it not?"

  "I'm very relieved to see he's better, of course."

  "Yes, he is better. He spoke of you in the night." Fernando drank the tea as if it tasted horrid, and put down the cup. "These bouts of his are weakening. In a few hours, when his temperature is down, I shall take him to my house at the Falls for a rest. The quarrying will have to cease until our manager arrives."

  "Won't Neville come back?"

  He shrugged. "He will please himself."

  Lesley's part of the conversation had been whispered, and Fernando's spoken low and without expression. His last remark left little to be said. She had thought to find him friendly and conspiratorial, had even seen herself standing with him near the trees to witness the thin flames of dawn licking across the sky. One could be beguiled into believing anything during the dark hours. Not looking at him, she said, "You'll need an early breakfast. Will you come up for it, or shall I send it down?"

  He put on his jacket, set a glass of water within Neville's reach, and opened the door. "Let us go. I shall drive at once to the Falls for breakfast and a change of clothing, and I shall be back in time to give Neville his tablets. I will come up the quarry road right to the cabin, so that he will not have to walk."

  That path which was becoming so familiar was traversed in silence. From habit he held her elbow, but he was icy and aloof, and he marched her along too quickly for speech. She went with him to his car, gave him a duster with which to mop up the moisture which had settled on the windscreen, and took it back from him.

  He looked down at her, his mouth thin. "You will now go in and complete your night's rest. Perhaps you will dream of Neville, as he dreamed of you."