Dangerous Friendship

by Anne Hampson

  Finally diverted from his interest in the couple who were now moving back to their table, where the waiter was already hovering, waiting to take their order, Rex reminded Lena that she was not eating.

  She made an effort, but the food seemed to choke her. For the very first time since coming to Africa she was not enjoying her evening out. She was relieved when June and Gerald, who had been dancing, returned to the table, since their presence seemed to take away some of Lena’s dejection.

  Ten minutes later Kane was approaching her table, and after having a few words with her companions he took Lena’s hand, asking, ‘Shall we dance?’ even as he brought her to her feet.

  ‘Yes…’ Catching her friend’s eye, Lena saw the lid come down slowly.

  After they had been dancing for a short while Kane said, in a faintly mocking tone she had never heard him use before,

  ‘Rex appears to be giving you his undivided attention tonight.’

  Lena shot him a glance of inquiry.

  ‘Does he?’ she said. ‘Is it so noticeable?’

  ‘In a place like this everything is noticeable.’

  ‘And rumour rife,’ she returned before she had time to stop herself.

  Kane glanced down, his eyebrows contracting.

  ‘What am I to infer from that remark?’ he queried smoothly.

  ‘It was merely a casual complement to what you yourself had said.’

  ‘I don’t think I understand you, Lena?’

  She coloured, little knowing how charming she appeared to him, with that soft rose tinting her cheeks, her brown eyes so wide and serious, her full lips, slightly parted, so inordinately tempting.

  ‘I suppose I shouldn’t have said a thing like that. Please don’t bother about it, Kane.’ And without affording him even one second in which to speak she went on to talk about the pony.

  ‘June says that Something Special has the makings of a show pony. She says she has the right looks and movement.’

  ‘Oh? And what does June know about it?’ he inquired with a sort of cool preciseness.

  ‘She used to do some show jumping. I remember that she won several prizes at our local gymkhanas.’

  ‘I see. And now can we get back to what we were talking about before? What exactly did you mean when you mentioned rumour?’

  ‘It was nothing,’ she answered uncomfortably. ‘I asked you not to pursue the matter because I spoke out of turn.’

  Kane was shaking his head even before she had stopped speaking.

  ‘You’d heard something… about whom, Lena?’ Soft the tone but authoritatively commanding for all that. Lena bit her lip, furious that she should have made the slip. How was she to extricate herself without injuring the relationship existing between Kane and herself? For it was imperative that she should not injure it; it was too precious by far—even though there could never be anything as intimate in it as in the relationship he enjoyed with Magda.

  ‘Please, Kane,’ she pleaded. ‘I can’t talk about it.’

  ‘You haven’t denied that you’ve heard something about me?’

  She hesitated, wishing fervently that the music would stop so that she could escape this questioning. But the next moment she was owning that to escape now would not do her much good at all, since, at the first opportunity, Kane would once again corner her and demand an answer to his question. At last, reluctantly, but with resignation, she told him what she had learned from Rex.

  ‘There’s a rumour going round that you might—might become engaged to—to Magda…’ How had she managed to get that out? Every word hurt excruciatingly. If it were true that he was going to marry Magda… if in a few seconds she should hear him admit that the rumour had foundation, then she did not think that she could remain in South Africa any longer.

  ‘Well, well,’ he was murmuring, neither his tone nor his expression telling her anything as he looked across the room, presumably searching for Magda, who was dancing with Stephen, Rex’s brother. ‘What will they find to talk about next?’ and Kane stepped out, swinging Lena into a more brisk step, following the music with more care than before. ‘Thank you, Lena, for that pleasant interlude,’ he said with his customary cool politeness as, escorting her to her table, he pulled out her chair, waited until she was seated, then, with a nod and a smile for her companions, returned to his own table.

  Broodingly her eyes followed him, noting his smile as he made some comment to Magda. The girl laughed, and glanced around. Had Kane repeated what Lena had said about the rumour concerning him and Magda? Lena rather thought that this was not so, that he would keep it to himself.

  Did the rumour have any foundation? As Rex had said, there was no smoke without fire.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Lena’s work in the shop was not only interesting, but it also took her mind off her own private worries. With the pre-Christmas increase in trade she had no time for brooding on her hopeless situation, or to debate on the question of whether or not she would leave the country when—and if—Kane should marry Magda.

  Mr Cookson, having decided quite early that Lena was highly efficient and trustworthy, would go off now and then and leave her in charge—this was usually when he was expecting a lull, such as in the very early morning or the late afternoon. And it was in the late afternoon that Magda came in, just a week before Christmas, her tall slender figure clad in an off-the-shoulder sun-dress of flowered cotton, crisp and cool and enhancing the lovely tan which the girl had acquired on her face and arms and shoulders. Her hair, gleaming like platinum, was coiffured to perfection, being taken back and fastened in a low bun in the nape of her neck. On her left wrist she wore a beautiful gold bracelet; the matching earrings hung low, shining as the sunlight caught them. In all, Magda made a picture of pure elegance… and Lena felt almost drab by comparison. At least, she mused, she wasn’t wearing dark blue or brown, and for this she had Kane to thank.

  Having been busy affixing price tickets to some new books that had arrived that day, she looked up with a smile on hearing the light footsteps as Magda entered, and she managed to retain the smile as she inquired what she could do for her.

  Magda asked for a book she had ordered, her voice arrogant and patronizing as she stood by the counter, her vivid blue eyes flickering from Lena’s face to her waist and then back again in an insolent kind of examination.

  ‘We haven’t had that in yet,’ Lena told her politely, ‘but it’s expected early next week.’

  ‘I ordered it over a month ago. Mr Cookson promised it would be in well before Christmas.’

  ‘It’ll be in before Christmas, Miss Sanborn. Is it for a present?’ she asked innocently, never for one moment expecting the girl to be annoyed by the question.

  ‘That,’ snapped Magda raking her narrowly, ‘is no concern of yours! You are here to serve me, not to ask impertinent questions!’

  Lena’s cheeks coloured swiftly.

  ‘I wasn’t being curious, Miss Sanborn. The question was merely a natural one, seeing that you’re so anxious to have the book before Christmas.’

  ‘Are you quite sure it isn’t in?’

  ‘Quite sure.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Magda’s arrogant eyes flickered around the well filled bookshelves. ‘You haven’t even looked.’

  ‘I’ve no need to look,’ Lena told her patiently. I know it hasn’t arrived yet.’

  Magda made an exasperated little click of her tongue.

  ‘Are you always as awkward as this with the customers?’ she inquired. ‘Is it your normal practice to refuse to look for the item which a customer wishes to purchase?’

  Lena’s temper, which had been rising slowly, threatened to break the rein she was endeavouring to keep upon it.

  ‘What exactly are you trying to do, Miss Sanborn?’ she asked, marvelling that she could speak in a voice totally unheated. ‘I don’t think I understand your attitude?’

  ‘My attitude?’ with a raising of those perfectly-curved eyebrows. ‘What’s wrong with my a
ttitude?’

  Lena hesitated, purposely, convinced that if she was not very careful she would play right into the girl’s hands. Obviously she was in the mood to pick a quarrel, though why this should be, Lena could not even begin to guess.

  ‘Your attitude is distinctly hostile, Miss Sanborn,’ she told her quietly at last.

  Magda’s colour changed, an angry thread of crimson creeping up under the lovely alabaster of her cheeks. Looking at her now, Lena noted the ugly light in her eyes, the thin compression of her mouth; the transformation from beauty to near ugliness was so dramatic that Lena could scarcely believe her eyes.

  ‘Hostile! How dare you? I shall report this impertinence to Mr Cookson!’ and with that threat ringing in her ears Lena watched the girl march to the door and disappear into the street.

  The scene naturally troubling her, Lena was not looking at all happy when at half-past six she cycled into the yard at Mtula Farm and greeted June, who was just emerging from the dairy with a large can of milk in her hand.

  ‘Something wrong?’ asked June as Lena propped her bicycle against the wall. ‘You don’t look your happiest self.’

  Frowning, Lena related all that had taken place between her and Magda.

  ‘I can’t find the least excuse for her attitude,’ she added, shaking her head.

  ‘No?’ June lifted her eyebrows. ‘You seem to forget, my love, that you’ve been treading on Magda’s sacred ground lately. She’ll have heard all about the attention you’ve been getting from Kane. His boat, for instance—he’s taken you sailing twice, and someone saw you, because Gerald was asked about it when he was in Fonteinville the other day. Then there’s the way Kane always dances with you at the Club—’

  ‘He dances with you as well,’ interrupted Lena pro-testingly. ‘In fact, he dances with all the girls he knows; it’s only manners that he should.’

  ‘What about the pony?’

  ‘Well, what about it? No one knows he’s lent it to me—’

  ‘You have been deceiving yourself, haven’t you? Servants, Lena,’ she added briefly, and Lena looked interrogatingly at her.

  ‘I don’t understand? How can our servants carry anything to Magda?’

  ‘All these African boys and women are related, most of them coming from the same village over there; they meet regularly for certain rituals and celebrations and the like. Katje, housekeeper to Magda’s uncle, is sister to our Susannah. Kane’s been over several times lately to ride with you, and Susannah made several pointed comments when you and he went off together yesterday morning.’

  ‘She did?’ Lena’s eyes wandered to the vegetable garden where Susannah was bent down, picking peas for the meal that would be served later in the evening. ‘So you believe that Magda gets to know everything?’

  ‘Almost everything.’ June grinned suddenly and could not help adding, ‘I don’t suppose she knows about Kane’s putting you in the bath. She’ll be livid if she ever does hear of it!’

  ‘Forget that,’ implored Lena. ‘I’m certainly trying to.’

  Upstairs in her room, Lena tried to shake off her depression, but it was a vain attempt. She was troubled about Mr Cookson’s reaction to the complaint Magda intended to lodge. Yet surely, she was telling herself the next moment, he would know that she would never dream of insulting one of his customers.

  Her dejection was still with her when she went in to breakfast the next morning, but if June noticed anything she tactfully refrained from making any remark that could embarrass her friend.

  Arriving at the shop, Lena became tensed, waiting for her employer to say something about yesterday’s episode. He merely smiled and bade her good morning and she realized that Magda had not yet communicated with him.

  All morning she waited, but nothing happened.

  However, some time between two and four o’clock—the hours when the shop was closed—someone delivered a letter. Mr Cookson picked it up from the shop floor as he unlocked the door and propped it open.

  He stood and read it, and it was not until he glanced in Lena’s direction that she guessed it was from Magda.

  ‘Miss Sanborn,’ he said with a frown. ‘She came in yesterday?’

  ‘Yes.’ Lena went slightly pale. ‘She came for a book she’d ordered.’

  ‘She’s written this letter… of complaint.’ He seemed reluctant to continue and an almost unbearable silence followed in consequence. ‘She asserts, quite categorically, that you were rude to her,’ he managed at last.

  ‘No such thing, Mr Cookson. I would never be rude to a customer.’

  ‘Insolent is the actual word she uses, Miss Ridgeway.’ His rather bulging eyes stared worriedly at her. ‘I can’t have that, I’m afraid.’

  A little more colour left Lena’s face. Her hands, clasped together on the counter, suddenly felt clammy, as did her forehead.

  ‘It isn’t true,’ she said, distressed. ‘Miss Sanborn seemed to be going out of her way to create trouble. I—’

  ‘Miss Ridgeway,’ he broke in protestingly, ‘no customer would do that.’

  Lena swallowed hard.

  ‘She did,’ reasserted Lena, but the man was shaking his head. He had known Miss Sanborn since she had come to live with her uncle; she was a most charming person, always so pleasant and tolerant.

  ‘Now if it had been old Miss Stanier I’d never have doubted that she was bent on making trouble, but—’ He stopped, tapping the letter and shaking his shiny bald head from side to side. ‘Not this charming young lady—no, indeed! Not Miss Sanborn.’

  ‘It seems,’ murmured Lena in a flat and hopeless voice, ‘that nothing I can say will convince you?’

  ‘Unfortunately—no.’

  ‘Then… what are you intending to do?’ Looking despairingly at him, she steeled herself to hear that her services were no longer required.

  ‘I shall overlook it this time, owing to your inexperience in dealing with the public, Miss Ridgeway. But I must beg you to be more careful in future. Of course, I know better than anyone that people can be trying, but as my livelihood depends on maintaining a pleasant relationship with my customers, then we must adhere to the maxim that the customer is always right.’

  Lena looked at him, unhappiness flooding over her.

  ‘I should have thought, Mr Cookson, that already you would have learned enough about me to be sure I would never let you down in the way you’re accusing me of doing. It’s true what you say about my not having had much experience in dealing with the public, but I do know how to behave—and also how to put my employer’s interests before anything else.’

  Mr Cookson shifted uncomfortably on his feet.

  When Lena arrived home that evening she was again depressed. June naturally wanted to know what was wrong and without hesitation Lena gave her the details. Her green eyes glinting with anger, June said, with a return of that forceful manner which she bad not used of late,

  ‘Give the darned job up! You’ve no need to work for the horrid old man! If he had a brain in that stupid bald head he’d know very well that you wouldn’t insult a customer! Give in your notice first thing in the morning!’

  Despite the way she felt, Lena could not help being amused by her friend’s attitude.

  ‘I can’t do that, June. In any case, I don’t want to leave. I like the work; it’s interesting and congenial.’

  ‘Are you going to put up with that silly old man finding fault all the time?’

  ‘I don’t expect he’ll be finding fault all the time. He hasn’t had a single fault to find with me until today—and you can’t put the blame on him for that—’

  ‘Certainly I can put the blame on him! He’s dazzled by the girl’s beauty! Absurd old fool!’ The green eyes took on a thoughtful expression. ‘As for Magda—well, I warned you to take care. The girl’s seething with jealousy—’

  ‘Nonsense!’ broke in Lena, blushing hotly. ‘Kane wouldn’t look at me in that way.’

  ‘Whether there’s a cause for jealousy or
not isn’t important. The girl is jealous,’ emphasized June as Lena opened her month to repeat her protest, ‘and in consequence she’s getting at you—spiteful cat! Kane wants his head seeing to—hanging around a bitch like her. What’s wrong with the man? He’s managed to keep himself free from entanglement all this time and now he’s fallen for a nasty piece of work like Magda Sanborn! Oh, how I wish I had the courage to give him a good talking to!’

  ‘He knows what he’s doing. June,’ said Lena quietly.

  ‘Rubbish!’

  ‘Rex is of the opinion that they’re exceedingly well suited.’

  ‘Then Rex wants his head seeing to as well!’

  Lena merely shrugged, dismissing the subject. The idea of Kane’s probable marriage to Magda was far too painful a matter to pursue.

  It was while they were having dinner that June said,

  ‘Oh, I forgot to mention this yesterday. It’s an invitation to a dance and buffet at the Yacht Club. There’s a yacht race too, by floodlight.’

  Interested, Lena took the invitation card and read it.

  ‘It says a dance,’ she observed, glancing questioningly at June. ‘It doesn’t mention anything about a race.’

  ‘There was a short note in with the card. Mr Burnett wrote it and it’s to inform us that the invitation includes our guest. He mentioned the race, and the buffet. Apparently the race was decided on later. He also said that although dress was informal, it would be nice if we added something nautical to it.’

  ‘I reckon it’ll be fun,’ said Gerald. ‘I’ve a blazer I can wear—and a pair of cricket flannels to go with it.’

  ‘It’ll be moth-eaten by now,’ his wife warned, then added impishly, ‘Why don’t you wear a long white beard and carry a trident?’

  He scowled at her, but teasingly.

  ‘I’ll keep to the flannels and blazer,’ he said. ‘If, as you say, the moths have been feeding off the flannels, then you can get busy with the darning needle.’

  ‘Some hopes you have! Darning went out of fashion in our grandmother’s day!’ He said nothing and she added, her brow creased in thought, ‘I think I shall wear my navy blue and white trouser suit.’ Picking up a dish, she helped herself to more vegetables. ‘Yes, that’ll do very well, I think.’