by Mariska
"I didn't know you loved me. I had to run away . . . for that reason, and others." She grasped his hand entreatingly. "Please believe that I love you as much as I can. It has hurt me, frightfully."
"Ah!" He flung open the car door and got out, strode round to haul her out of the other side. His hands flat behind her shoulders, he gazed at her as if to memorise every detail of her face. Then he pulled her close and kissed her as she had thought she never would be kissed by any man.
AT last, his lips at her ear, he asked, "Do you doubt my love now?" She was smiling. "When did you first love me, Fernando?"
"I do not know. At the start you jabbed a little in my mind like a small thorn in the finger. The next phase was more like the beginning of a fever. Oh, you may laugh, but you have seen Neville with fever—and for him you had only pity ! Then I found I could not endure the thought of your being alone with that cousin of mine. The torment was unbearable."
Standing there in the shade of a black mahogany, his arm about her, he described his home-coming to the Falls.
"Didn't Virginia tell you at once that I'd gone?" she asked incredulously.
"I am afraid not. What she hoped to gain I am unable to guess, but she postponed the explanation, and I heard it from Neville instead." He gave a lift of his shoulders and shook his head. "I cannot put into words how I felt; I was out of my mind. At once I tackled your father . . ." He broke off, and added, "I was abominably rude to him, but later he came over to my house and forgave me and wished me to give you his love and bring you back."
"Did he really say that?" she demanded in delight.
"He did," sternly. "And do not sparkle with excitement because your father does his duty. From now on, the light in your eyes is for me."
"Of course, my darling. Now and always. But I'm glad he wants me back. You can't imagine how desolating it is to feel unwanted."
"Can I not?" he rejoined with a hint of acid. "You do not remember the other times you have run away from me? You have much for which to atone, Lesley!"
"It will be such a pleasure," she said on a sigh. "We've wasted so much time, Fernando."
"The time was not wasted, my dear one—perhaps misused by your sister, but not wasted."
She shot him a quick glance and gently drew away from him. "What . how did you leave Virginia?" she queried carefully.
"Are you inquiring about her health, or do you wonder how I came to tear myself away from her?" His regard was quizzical and tender. "I confess I do not understand such a woman as Virginia. Thinking about it all in the plane, it seemed to me she is mistress of the implied falsehood. When it suits her, she is not above an unvarnished lie. Such as the one about Boland."
"Martin?" Lesley paused. "Did she come out into the open about him?"
"No, your father did when he came to the house." With just a suggestion of harshness in his tone, he said, "Were you fair to me, Lesley? What sort of code was it that permitted you to be silent when Virginia told her untruths? Did it not hurt in any way to know I was being deceived?"
She swung towards him. "Of course it did. If I'd known you cared about me even a little bit, I couldn't have gone through with it. You see that day—when you took me home to the farm, and Martin was there with
Virginia—I felt we'd got to the verge of friendship and somehow slipped away from it again."
"There is always a reason for these things. The night of Mrs. Pemberton's campfire party we were friendly and close—you remember?" She nodded wordlessly, and he checked himself. "But why did you permit your sister to call Martin Boland your friend and not hers?"
"Well, that day, at your house, I saw Virginia's photograph in a drawer of the dining-room cabinet."
He shrugged. "What did you expect me to do with it? Frame it and place it on my bedside table?"
She gave a small, helpless laugh. "It seemed awfully sinister to me, it being in your house at all. When did she give it to you?"
"It was one night while you were staying at Grey Ridge. I drove over to Amanzi to get the latest news about you. Virginia showed me several pictures of the North of England, where you used to live, and among them was the photograph of herself. Only a boor would not have complimented her on it or refused to take it when she offered it. So you were jealous?"
"It wasn't really jealousy; just rank unhappiness!"
At that point came an interval in the conversation, and when finally he released her, he guided her back to the car and got in with her. "They will be thinking at the airfield that I have absconded with the car," he said regretfully. "But Paul Petout will be ready to fly us back."
"You haven't yet told me how you contacted him."
"I met Paul when I was working on my last contract. As soon as I heard you had left for England I tried to reach him by telephone, but it was impossible. So I sent him a wire to meet me at Broken Hill. Paul did not receive the telegram till Saturday afternoon. I was fuming at the delay, but there was no action I could take till he picked me up."
"What about your contract at the Falls?"
"I was certainly of no use there till I had found you. It was torture! Your father could not even state with certainty which hotel you would choose in London. I never knew of anything so casual, so utterly infuriating. I was in no condition to make decisions about turbines and transmission lines, and my only hope was to get after you as soon as possible."
"It was mad," she said huskily. "Especially from you. You're so clever and calm."
"Neither clever nor calm about you, dearest," he said softly. "I have had panic about you many times, and sometimes I have thought only of the future—our future. I would pace around the powerhouse at night, and I would think of the waterfalls I must show you in San Feliz, and those mountains which are covered with orchids like a lilac mist." He took a sharp breath. "After the dreams, I would go back to my house, and my arms would ache with the emptiness."
"Darling," she whispered, her hand on his.
"You will marry me soon—very soon?"
"Yes," she breathed. "But what will Virginia say?"
He shrugged. "Who knows? It is possible she will already have gathered that a man would follow a woman half-way across the world only for one reason. It is my opinion that she will not remain for much longer in Africa. And now we must really go back to the airfield."
Lesley watched his hands on the wheel and loved them. Happiness was a positive pain about her heart and a pulsing in her veins. An hour ago she had been at the end of the world, and now she faced a shining future, shared with Fernando. She had so much more to ask him, so much more she wanted to explain, but the achingly wonderful nearness of him, the knowledge that they were inextricably bound together, now and forever, overlaid everything else.
"When will we get to the Falls?"
"Tomorrow morning. My car is at Broken Hill, and we must drive from there." A pause. Then, "Here we are. They are watching for us." "Am I untidy?" she asked anxiously.
He glanced at her for a long moment and smiled teasingly. "You look kissed, dear heart, and it becomes you. From today you will always look kissed. I love you, Lesley."
"And I love you, Fernando," she said. As he brought the car to a halt she thought how strong and vital the three old words sounded. As strong and vital as Fernando himself.
THE END
© Rosalind Brett
