Summer of the Weeping Rain

by Yvonne Whittal

  Adam raised his head suddenly. 'Kiss me back, damn you!'

  'No!' She raised protesting hands to ward off his descending lips. 'You have no right to make such demands upon me. 'You know it, and I know it.'

  'What the devil are you talking about?' he thundered at her, releasing her so suddenly that she almost fell.

  'You don't need me to explain the situation to you. You know what I'm talking about.'

  'I'm damned if I do,' he almost shouted at her, 'but we'll let the matter pass for the moment. I'm not in the mood to try and fathom the workings of a woman's mind.' He jerked open the door and stepped away from it this time. 'You may go, Lisa. I don't think we have anything further to say to each other at present.'

  Something was terribly wrong, she realised suddenly. But what? She took a hesitant step towards him. 'Adam…'

  'Go, Lisa!' he ordered harshly, waving his arm towards the door. 'Go before I do, or say something that I might regret later. Heaven knows, I've taken just about as much as a man can stand, and at this moment I'd like nothing better than to shake some sense into you.'

  Lisa's eyes widened at the dark fury on his rugged features, then she turned and walked out of his study, closing the door softly behind her. In the passage she paused for a moment, confused and bewildered by something she did not understand, but, as she heard something that sounded like Adam's fist coming down heavily on to his desk, she walked quickly down the passage and crossed the darkened hall towards the stairs.

  Tomorrow, perhaps, she would understand the reason for his deliberate obtuseness; tomorrow, when her body was not still tingling from the pressure of his arms, she would be able to sort out the muddled thoughts cascading through her mind. But tonight there was only the pain and confusion, and the longing for something she could not have.

  Celia Moreau and Molly Anstey arrived one afternoon the following week and, when her aunt's dusty old Peugeot came up the drive, Lisa, the twins, and Erica Vandeleur were there to welcome them to Fairview. Adam, too, came walking round the corner of the house at that moment, and he stood aside patiently while Lisa was hugged and kissed effusively by her mother and her aunt. Celia Moreau opened up her motherly arms to Josh and Kate, and they went into them with a surprising lack of shyness, but Adam's geniality in welcoming her family surprised Lisa most of all. The servants were called to take care of their suitcases and the car, and, flanked by Adam and Erica Vandeleur, the two women were ushered out of the scorching sun and into the coolness of the house.

  Lisa and the twins followed more slowly, but there was a puzzled frown on her usually smooth brow when she later saw her mother chatting softly to Adam over tea. Their discussion appeared to be of a serious nature, but Lisa noticed that Adam obviously had difficulty in hiding his amusement at times. There seemed to be an easy familiarity between them, as if they had known each other for some time, and Lisa suddenly envied her mother her selfassurance.

  'Oh, it's wonderful to be here again, Erica,' Molly Anstey sighed, drawing Lisa's attention away from her mother and Adam for a while. 'It's been so many years, and yet it seems like yesterday to me,' her aunt continued, leaning back in her chair and looking about her with interest. 'Your niece and I used to fight over whose turn it was to eat the warm crust of the freshly-baked bread, and then we used to plaster it with fresh farm butter, but I remember best of all how we used to go haring across the veld on horseback.' Molly laughed reminiscently. 'I wonder sometimes how we managed not to get ourselves seriously injured!'

  Erica Vandeleur smiled with a touch of wry humour on her face. 'You and Peggy were both rather wild in those days.'

  'Tell me about Peggy,' said Molly, turning to the older woman seated in the upright stinkwood chair beside her own. 'We lost contact somehow when she married that Austrian of hers and went overseas.'

  The twins became restless at this stage and, unnoticed, Lisa took them outside.

  'Is your mother also a teacher?' they wanted to know as Lisa walked with them down the drive and out across the veld to the nearest camp where they could watch the sheep being herded into a kraal for the night.

  'My mother isn't a teacher, but my aunt is,' Lisa told them, placing her arms protectively about them when they climbed up on to the gate and perched there precariously. 'I like your mother,' Kate announced. 'She's so pretty, and she smells nice too.'

  'Just like you, Lisa,' Josh added, kissing Lisa unexpectedly on the cheek.

  'Why, thank you,' she laughed happily, tightening her arms about them affectionately. 'It will make my mother very happy to know that you like her.'

  'There's Uncle Adam,' Josh exclaimed suddenly, and the twins waved excitedly.

  Adam, with his broad-brimmed hat pulled characteristically over his eyes, raised his hand and waved back, then the black stallion gathered speed and galloped off in the direction of the small hill behind the outbuildings. There was a large grazing paddock beyond that hill, but the Jacksons' farm also lay in that direction, and the tantalising question was… to which would he be going in such a hurry?

  'I wish it was Christmas already, then we could go with Uncle Adam on our ponies when he rides into the veld,' Josh sighed impatiently.

  'You won't have to wait much longer,' Lisa pacified him, her wistful eyes following Adam's imposing figure on that magnificent horse until he was out of sight. 'Christmas is just a few days away, but then you'll first have to learn to ride before you will be allowed to ride with your uncle.'

  'We'll learn very quickly,' Kate said seriously, and Lisa laughed as she helped them off the gate and took them back to the house.

  Lisa's laughter was a little hollow, however, for the time was coming nearer for her to leave, and she would have to become accustomed to the empty vessel her life would become once she was back in the city. She would miss the twins, the late afternoon walks, the fiery sunsets, and the warm, star-studded nights, but most of all she would miss Adam. The longing for him, and for what could never be, would eat away at her relentlessly, but it had to be faced.. She would bury herself in her work, like her aunt had done, and just pray that she grew too old to care.

  Josh and Kate ran ahead, but Lisa followed more slowly, her limp barely noticeable now at that pace, but Lisa had been too preoccupied lately to realise that she no longer walked with the old pronounced limp. Her scars, too, were barely noticeable in the golden hue of the setting sun as it settled in her hair to form a glorious halo about the soft contours of her face, but it was not herself or her appearance she was thinking of at that moment. She was thinking of Adam; of his mockery, his cynicism, his frowns, his twisted little smiles, and the forbidden wonder of his lips and arms.

  No, no! She must not think of him like that, she told herself fiercely, quickening her pace to catch up to the twins. She must think of him only as her employer, and the man who had found her an amusing plaything when the woman he had chosen to marry was not about. Yes, she must think of him like that; as the man who thought nothing of being unfaithful to the woman whom he had asked to share his life. He was a cad! A rake!

  A cad and a rake he might be, but… dear heaven! What did it matter what name she attached to him? she thought in despair. He could be the devil incarnate, and she would still love him and want him with that aching longing that was eating away at her like a corrosive canker.

  'Lisa, you're not listening!' the children's agitated voices finally got through to her, and she looked down at them with a guilty start.

  'I'm sorry. What were you saying?'

  'Do we have to bath tonight?' Josh demanded. 'We didn't dirty ourselves today.'

  'Oh, yes, you have to bath,' Lisa insisted firmly, giving them a gentle shove into the house. 'Upstairs, both of you, and into that bath, or your uncle might think twice about letting you have a pony for Christmas.'

  Their sulky expressions vanished miraculously, and they ran across the hall and clambered up the stairs without further argument. Lisa glanced into the living-room as she followed them, but there was
no one there and, glimpsing the time, she realised that it was later than usual. Her mother and her aunt were most probably up in their rooms changing for dinner, but there was no time for her now to drop in on them. The twins had to be bathed and fed, and then she would have to rush through a bath herself if she wanted to be on time for dinner.

  When Lisa finally went downstairs, she found everyone in the living-room, and Adam gestured her into a chair beside his own while he poured her a glass of sherry. Their eyes met briefly, then she looked away and tried to still the quickening of her heartbeats as she raised her glass to her lips to sip the fiery .liquid.

  'Lisa, my dear, I just can't get over it,' her mother remarked when there was a lull in the conversation. 'You're looking wonderful. You're still a little on the thin side, but you're so beautifully tanned.'

  'Didn't I say that the Karoo air would do wonders for you?' her aunt added mischievously, and the colour rose faintly in Lisa's cheeks.

  'You did, Aunt Molly.'

  'When I first suggested her coming here to Fairview, she wouldn't hear of it,' her aunt elaborated to an interested Adam, and Lisa felt her cheeks grow warmer as her aunt continued. 'Lisa said that the Karoo was hot and dusty, and far too primitive for a city girl like herself.'

  Lisa drained her glass and, aware that everyone's eyes were on her at that moment, she tried to hide her embarrassment by saying tritely, 'Don't remind me of my ignorance, please, Aunt Molly.'

  The women laughed, but Lisa could feel Adam's eyes burning into her like two coals of fire. 'Have you changed your mind about the Karoo, then?'

  She drew the shutters on her soul and looked at him then. 'I don't think anyone could live here for a time and not change their mind.'

  Adam's eyes were unfathomable dark pools as he said: 'If you were offered the opportunity, would you consider remaining here permanently?'

  'I don't think so,' she replied instantly, shrinking from the idea of being on hand to witness his eventual marriage, and vaguely aware of the other three women in the room exchanging quick glances as she added: 'It's time I went back to teaching.'

  'And to civilisation, in fact.'

  'I never said that!' she reacted sharply to the hint of derisive mockery in his voice, but before either of them could say more, Erica Vandeleur rose to her feet.

  'Shall we go in to dinner?'

  'Good idea,' Adam agreed instantly, setting aside his empty glass and getting to his feet. 'After you, ladies.'

  Erica Vandeleur led the way, and Lisa made up the rear with Adam directly behind her. She felt his eyes on her, and she tensed inwardly, fighting off the familiar sensations that quivered along her nerves.

  What had he meant by asking her if she would consider remaining here permanently if she were offered the opportunity? she wondered throughout dinner. Was he thinking of finding her work somewhere in the district? Somewhere close enough, perhaps, so that she would continually run into him and Willa? Lisa shivered and thrust aside the distasteful thought. She did not want to be within a hundred-kilometre radius of him after his marriage to Willa, so there was only one way she could go. Back to Cape Town!

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Lisa had the opportunity to be alone with her mother for the first time the following morning after tea had been served on the verandah. Mrs Vandeleur and Aunt Molly had excused themselves to go in search of an old family album, but an odd little silence had hovered in the air since their departure.

  'More tea, Mother?' Lisa offered eventually, trying to shake off her uneasiness:

  'Not at the moment, thank you, dear,' Celia Moreau declined, shifting a little uncomfortably in her chair, and then the reason for her discomfiture was explained. 'I saw Rory in town a few weeks ago. He asked for your address, and I didn't want to appear rude, so I gave it to him.' She glanced quickly at her daughter. 'Did he write to you?'

  'No, Mother,' Lisa smiled wryly. 'He came here to see me instead, but I'm afraid he had a wasted journey.'

  'You sent him away?'

  'Yes.'

  'Perhaps it was for the best,' her mother agreed seriously, and once again there was that odd little silence between them that puzzled Lisa. She stared at her mother curiously, but she appeared to be perfectly relaxed, and when their glances met, Celia smiled. 'Adam is such a nice man, don't you think?'

  Lisa did not know what she had expected, but this sudden reference to Adam startled her, and she stiffened automatically. 'I suppose so, yes.'

  'It was very kind of him to write and invite me here as well, don't you think?'

  'Yes… very kind,' Lisa smiled a little cynically, recalling Adam's assertion that he never did anything out of kindness, but for a purpose; a purpose she had yet to discover.

  'Do you get on well with him?'

  'Well enough,' Lisa replied abruptly, realising at once that she would have to be on her guard against remarks such as these.

  'He seems to be such a reliable and dependable man, and not at all the kind who would ever let anyone down in a moment of crisis.'

  Lisa knew her mother too well not to be aware of the intense curiosity hidden behind that supposedly casual remark, and she decided to laugh it off, as she had done so often in the past before Rory Phillips had walked in and out of her life.

  'Mother, you're as transparent as cellophane!'

  'Am I?' Celia Moreau asked, attempting to look blank, but Lisa was not fooled for one moment.

  'You're trying, very subtly, to find out what my feelings are for Adam Vandeleur, but you're wasting your time,' Lisa accused directly, and she was surprised to see her mother go a little pink in the face.

  'I was merely wondering—'

  'Don't, Mother,' Lisa interrupted, hiding the pain in her heart with a convincing display of disinterest. 'Adam Vandeleur is my employer, and beyond that we have nothing in common, so don't imagine that I have developed an undying passion for him.'

  'I haven't imagined anything of the kind,' her mother protested, 'but, as your mother, I'm naturally concerned about your future, and I would like to see you settled happily with someone nice and dependable.'

  Lisa smiled faintly. 'I'm sure you do, Mother, but that "someone nice and dependable" won't be Adam Vandeleur.'

  'Don't you like him, then?'

  'Whether I like him or not makes no difference to the situation,' Lisa replied, meeting her mother's direct gaze with eyes that were carefully hooded. 'He's my employer and, as such, I respect him.'

  Celia Moreau stared hard at her daughter for a moment, her disappointment obvious, but as the children came charging round the corner of the house to raid the cake tin yet again, she gestured a little helplessly with her hands.

  'I think another cup of tea would do nicely now, if you don't mind.'

  The subject was not mentioned again during the last two days before Christmas, but Lisa was quite aware of being observed closely whenever Adam was about. She became aloof, and deliberately arranged that she would be occupied elsewhere as much as possible when Adam was in the house. It was unavoidable that they should spend time together over the Christmas weekend, but Lisa was on her guard, and purposely submerged herself in Josh and Kate's excitement as they helped to decorate the tree in the living-room.

  Lisa had not had much time to do her Christmas shopping, so her gifts had had to be carefully thought out beforehand. For her aunt there was a bottle of her favourite perfume, and for her mother the pearl earrings she had always wanted, but somehow never had the money to buy. For Mrs Vandeleur Lisa chose the genuine silk scarf she had admired in a shop window one day, and for the twins each a book on animals which she knew they would enjoy. Adam had presented a problem, though. He was her employer and probably did not expect anything from her, but she finally shook off her misgivings and decided on fine linen handkerchiefs with his initial embroidered in the one corner.

  The presents were handed out on Christmas Eve, but beneath the laughter and the gaiety Lisa sensed a hint of sadness. The Vandeleur family had been
tragically deprived of two of its members, and their thoughts must have gone repeatedly to the previous Christmas when they had all still been together.

  Lisa's eyes filled with tears as she looked down at the twins playing quite happily on the carpet at her feet, but she blinked away the mistiness unobtrusively. Josh and Kate had been thrilled at the concession their uncle had made which had allowed them to stay up later than usual, but when the clock on the mantelshelf struck nine Adam cleared his throat significantly.

  'Can't we stay up just a little longer, Uncle Adam?' Josh begged, despite the droopiness of his eyelids, but Adam was adamant.

  'If you don't go to bed now, you'll be too sleepy to ride your ponies when they arrive tomorrow.'

  The twins needed no further encouragement and they hastily gathered up their presents and said goodnight. Lisa followed them upstairs, but she lingered longer than necessary after tucking them up in bed, and remained until they were asleep.

  She was reluctant to go downstairs, and it was no use denying it to herself. It was wonderful having her mother and her aunt there with her, but they knew her too well not to have guessed that something was wrong. She had always discussed things with them quite openly, but her feeling for Adam was something she could not bring herself to talk about—not even to her mother.

  Lisa sighed and switched off the light before leaving the children's room, but in the darkened passage she collided with someone, and her heart leapt into her throat as her hands encountered the solid, immovable wall of Adam's chest.

  'I came up to see what was keeping you so long,' he said, and she could feel the heat of his steadying hands at her waist through the chiffon of her dress.

  'I sat with the children until they were asleep,' she explained a little shakily, the familiar aroma of tobacco and after-shave lotion attacking her senses and making her tremble inwardly. 'I—I didn't think it would matter to anyone.'