“I don’t find you in the last puzzling.”
“Don’t you?” She stared at him for a moment, then looked away. “I suppose I’m girlish and transparent. I’m easily placed.”
“That sounds as if you were colorless—and you’re not. It’s not your fault that you didn’t turn up at Port Quentin in the teeth of a gale and wearing a beard.”
Her shoulders moved with silent laughter. The stiff breeze and his banter combined to make her feel wonderfully lighthearted, and exhilaration coursed through her veins in a warm, delicious tide.
They were running along the thick green coastline, about half a mile out. A little freighter had appeared on the skyline, the smoke from its funnel a thin grey scarf in its wake.
“Look!” Charles pointed to a black, slithering shape not ten feet from the yacht’s side. “Pretty boy, isn’t he?”
“A shark?” Involuntarily, she edged closer to him. “He’s enormous.”
“If we had tackle we could finish him.”
“I’m glad we haven’t!”
“I thought you were of an age to ache for adventure.”
“Not that kind.”
“What kind?” he asked, still scanning the waters. “High romance?”
“Why not? Africa’s a vast and romantic land, but for a while I’m content with this corner of it.”
There was a silence. Charles straightened and turned, so that his back rested on the rail and he could gaze across the deck and the rolling waves at the edge of Africa.
“What makes you think I’d make a worse husband than any other man?” he enquired conversationally.
The question was so unexpected that Laurette became temporarily witless. She pressed finger and thumb round the rail and tried hard to make them meet.
“Well ... you’re a bit of a woman-hater aren’t you—and you’ve developed a way of living that gets you along quite well without them. Some men need a wife, but you don’t.” To gloss what might strike him as a too-personal analysis from one who admitted she found him baffling, she added, “Being a man who can do without women makes you more interesting. You’re the first I’ve known.”
He looked down at her shrewdly. “What about Ben Vaughan?”
In that second she remembered, almost, for the first time since the day it had happened, Ben’s declaration that he loved her. Her lids lowered.
“He’s a doctor.”
“Doctors are men, you know. I suspect you do know. Ben doesn’t want to get along without a woman, does he?”
“He ... he needs a holiday.”
Charles gave a brief laugh. “You mean a honeymoon.” On a harder note he ended, “If you’re not fond of him it’s unfair to go on working with him.”
“Of course it isn’t unfair. He must have help.”
“But not from you! It takes a strong man to endure the torment of having the girl he wants near at hand but untouchable, and Ben isn’t particularly strong that way. You wouldn’t want him to crack up?”
“Ben—crack up?” She shook her head in disbelief. “He’s not at all that much in love with me.”
“He has told you, then?”
“Yes, but he was almost casual, so it can’t be very serious.”
“What a child you are,” he said viciously. “Talking with you makes me tired.”
She was quiet with hurt. She was not even quite sure what Charles was getting at. Did he think she ought either to marry Ben or get out of his life? But how absurd. Ben didn’t want that, and her home was as much here in Port Quentin as his was.
It came to her suddenly that Charles and Ben did not really like each other. They were opposing personalities. Both were hard workers, but Ben found life arduous and not particularly rewarding, whereas Charles was commanding and completely self-sufficient.
She became aware that Charles had gone from her side, but she had no wish now to watch him at the helm. The ship veered and changed Laurette’s view. They were cruising back down the coast.
Charles returned. “Come along to the cabin for a drink. Can’t offer you coffee because there’s no fresh water on board, but I can find you a large lime and soda with a suggestion of gin.”
He was suave, his earlier spurt of annoyance apparently forgotten. He seated her in the small square cabin, unlocked a cupboard and got out drinks. When he had poured he sat down beside her and offered cigarettes. As he held the lighter she saw the scar inside his arm, a long, crooked, red indentation. In the house he was careful to keep it covered, and this was her first sight of it since she had dressed the wound.
“Does it still hurt?” she queried.
‘Only if it gets an unlucky bang. The redness will wear off.” He tried his drink. “Now that you’ve shown yourself a good sailor we might make a longer trip one day. The Wild Coast is a succession of lovely inlets and river mouths, and the villagers who live near them are comparatively unspoiled because modern transport can’t get at them. I’ll introduce you to an old chief who remembers my grandfather having a pow-wow with his father, when he was a small boy. Port Quentin had hardly begun then.”
“I’ve probed about the history of Port Quentin,” she said. “People say it was meant to be a first-class port but the river-mouth silted and made it dangerous for all except small shipping.”
“That’s true. You should have asked my Uncle Gilbert all about it. My grandfather was his father. That’s how the property comes to be entailed to me.”
“Will you really take me higher up the coast?” she asked eagerly.
“I’ve said I will.”
“If talking to me makes you tired...”
“It’ll be weariness in a good cause,” he said mockingly. “Besides, we’ve no one like you at Mohpeng, so I ought to make the most of you.”
She said, “It’s only just about three weeks to when you leave, isn’t it?”
“Yes—so you’d better be nice to me. We haven’t time to quarrel.”
“I’ll be sweeter than pie if you’ll promise to give up treating me as an infant.”
He grinned and drew in his lip. “Don’t behave as one. I won’t promise, but I’ll try. How’s the drink?”
“Not too bad.” She lowered most of it and set the glass on the table. The cabin had become strangely stifling and Charles was a little too near. She jumped up. “I’ve never seen the yacht properly. Show me the rest of it.”
It was an obvious move and one that he appeared to find slightly funny, but he drained his glass and followed her out on deck.
Half an hour later they steamed back into the haven of Port Quentin. Charles threw, a few instructions to the deck hand, helped Laurette on to the jetty and steadied her as they walked along it to the wide rough road which led up, between overgrown gardens, to the Kelsey mansion.
When she entered the veranda her face was flushed, her hair tumbled. Her father greeted them from his long chair.
“What was it like out there? You must take her again, Charles. The sea has made her beautiful.”
Charles’ glance at her was pleasantly interested. “I shouldn’t give the sea all the credit.”
“I should say not!” she put in quickly. “I had some gin. Will you excuse me now, while I change?”
As she washed and got into a green flowered frock, Laurette found herself humming a catchy tune which was popular on the radio. She made up carefully, happy in the certainty that today she actually was more attractive. It must have been the wind which made her skin glow, and the salt air in her lungs that made it imperative for her to sing.
When Mr. Kelsey arrived, they lunched on the veranda, and afterwards Laurette sat there with her father, desultorily chatting and reading. Later, after she had brought him a cup of tea, she wandered about the garden, snipping off full-blown magnolia blossoms for the floating bowl, and cutting other flowers of varying lengths for the flower-baskets in the lounge. The arrangement of them took a long time and was an enjoyable task.
At five-thirty, when the sun had gone, Cha
rles came back from polo, and at once he called a houseboy to help carry John Delaney in his long chair to his bedroom.
Laurette’s father refused to have done for him those things which he could do for himself. He washed and shaved, gave his reddish hair the military brushing to which it was accustomed and tied his own tie. But whenever he needed to be moved or helped in dressing, Charles was there, jesting a little as he lent a strong arm or a dextrous hand.
It was dark when Laurette had a bath and put on a coral pink frock and a necklace of tiny cornelians. She had no idea who had been invited tonight, but she knew most of the people in Port Quentin and was unafraid. Her father was well liked, and everyone would be pleased to see him so bright in spite of the maddening frustration of having to sit most of the time.
She came into the lounge to find it brilliantly lit but deserted. A large silver tray on top of the cabinet was set with many glasses, and soon a boy entered carrying a bucket of ice and a crystal bowl of lemon slices.
Laurette stood at the french window, revelling in the cool air about her neck and shoulders; in Pondoland one could wear off-the-shoulder creations in comfort. The veranda lights threw into relief the immense colonial pillars, and the flying beetles beat crazy zigzag patterns in their frenzy to get at the lamps. Frangipani perfumed the air and the palms whispered.
She heard a sound and turned to find Mr. Kelsey, correctly attired in a white dinner jacket, surveying the severely luxurious scene from just inside the doorway.
“Hullo, my dear,” he said. “You look very sweet. I’ve just had a note from Ben to say that he can’t get along tonight.”
“But it’s Saturday! Did he say why?”
“A doctor doesn’t have to. Don’t look so disappointed. He’ll be here in a day or two to see your father.”
“And, anyway, I shall be starting work on Monday,” she said.
But she was sorry he would not be coming tonight because, since talking with Charles this morning, she felt she owed Ben more than the allegiance of an employee for her boss. It tied her up inside to think of Ben loving her, but it had to be faced and sensibly dealt with. Some time she would have to find out whether he really did feel uncomfortable with, her around in his rooms.
A moment or two later Laurette entirely forgot Ben, for Charles sauntered in, handsome and nonchalant. His flickering glance appraised her, he smiled as if what he saw had his approval, and without volition she warmed.
For Laurette, that night was one she could look back upon with a kind of nostalgia; it gleamed with freshness and a dawning beauty which she later came to realize had been the first shy awakening. She had known no pain, no premonitory bitterness; only a sense of expanding happiness and delight.
The guests arrived amid chatter and goodwill. The clinking of glasses mingled with laughter, some of it hearty gusts from her father. The dinner was excellent, and coffee on the veranda was cooling, particularly as the boys served it in glasses with ice.
The lounge floor was cleared and the gramophone set going. Laurette danced several times, was complimented and questioned about what she usually did with her leisure. The whole atmosphere had the headiness of good wine.
It was about ten-thirty, when she was tiring a little, that Charles took her outside.
“You’ve danced enough,” he said. “The way to get the best from life is to be moderate in all things. You should intersperse the dancing with serious discussion.”
She sighed with pleasure and made a grimace. “Who wants serious discussion on a night like this? I feel so happy, Charles.”
“Do you?” They were walking slowly along the dark garden path and he looked down curiously at the pure outline of her face and creamy shoulders. “Happiness usually depends on other people. Who’s at the root of yours?”
She raised her glance to him, the free, unguarded glance of the truly young and happy. “My father, Mr. Kelsey ... and you. I think it’s knowing that people care about you that makes you happy.”
“I haven’t said I care about you!”
She laughed a little. “I meant that in its most distant application. Heaven forbid that I should saddle you with a little sister. I ask no more than a cessation of hostilities.”
“If you had less intelligence,” he said deliberately, “I’d get very annoyed with you.”
Tonight her tongue seemed to run on little silver wheels. ‘Why?” she smilingly cast up at him. “Have I pricked your pride? I’d hate to do anything unforgivable.”
“Be quiet,” he said.
They reached the deodar and the white stone garden seat. He gave her a gentle push that compelled her to sit down, and hitched his trousers to lower himself beside her. His arm lay along the back of the seat, but he was not looking her way.
He nodded in the direction of the sea. “I like the sound of it at night. I like nights on board, too. Which way did you come to South Africa—west coast?”
“Yes. The east is best, isn’t it?”
“It’s more spectacular. I went home that way—spent a week in Madagascar and another in Zanzibar. You can smell the cloves of Zanzibar fifty miles away.”
“I’ll go there one day.”
Teasingly, he tugged a curl at the back of her head. “You’ve plenty of time; plenty of time for everything—and that includes falling in love.”
“Falling in love must be rather nice,” she said musingly, “so long as one doesn’t hurry it. Have you ever been in love, Charles?”
“My dear child,” he said tersely, “there are some topics which are only permissible if handled with adult sophistication. One doesn’t blandly ask a man of thirty-four if he’s ever been in love.”
“Oh, dear,” she murmured. “I ought to have taken it for granted.”
“And don’t tell yourself that this love business is the prerogative of adolescents. The real sort requires much more knowledge and experience than you young things can possibly possess.”
“I’ve put myself in the infant class again,” she said ruefully. “I do think you might help me to learn all these subtleties.”
“Why should I teach you how to respond to some other man? In any case, when the time comes you’ll do it naturally.” Lightly, his fingers brushed her shoulder. “You’re getting cold. We’d better go in.”
As they strolled back down the path Laurette was smiling into the night. The scents were intoxicating and her brain was like blown feathers. The stars scintillated, but her eyes were brighter. She was conscious of Charles at her side, of a delightful chill where his warm fingers had touched her shoulder. What a miraculous, glorious world it was!
CHAPTER SIX
ELATION which works up to a climax for no apparent reason inevitably dims quite soon, but what it has touched it leaves mellow; for a while. At the Kelsey house a quiet serenity reigned. Charles, in preparation for the polo which was an important feature of; life at Mohpeng, had persuaded others of the Port Quentin men to form a couple of teams, and practice matches were arranged nearly every day. They played on the town’s only piece of flat ground, beyond the beach and behind a small headland, and, needless to say, Charles’ pace easily outstripped that of the rest. He was a seasoned and formidable player.
Laurette did not go along with the other women of Port Quentin to watch the matches. She was back in her cap and apron, massaging the leg of the piccanin, dressing wounds, keeping records and sending out accounts.
After her week or so away from it, Ben’s house seemed darker and rather depressing. He had bought it with the practice from an old doctor, and the furniture was out-of-date, the upholstery incredibly drab. Never a flower lent color to his lounge, and even the landscapes on the walls were dull and lifeless. Laurette often wondered how he could bear the place as it was, for its contrast to the vivid and lovely town was shattering; and it wasn’t as if Ben had not had ample opportunity for comparing his own abode with others. He’d been inside almost every one of the hundred or so houses in Port Quentin.
He never
entertained, nor had he any particular bachelor friend, but he occasionally accepted invitations to other people’s houses, and he had always enjoyed calling at the Delaney bungalow.
John Delaney had once said that Ben Vaughan was a bit of a failure. “It’s nothing positive—just his attitude. I think he must have had a few knocks and now he’s for ever on the defensive. Inside himself, I mean. He doesn’t expect the best from life, so of course he doesn’t get it. It’s strange, in a doctor.”
Ben’s practice was not a lucrative one. The white people of Port Quentin were a healthy, outdoor crowd; he had a few regular patients among them otherwise his services were needed chiefly in emergencies. In the course of a year perhaps two white babies would be born.
The small Indian section were less robust and they paid their bills regularly, sometimes even in advance. But the bulk of Ben’s patients were natives, a large proportion of whom took advantage of the fact that Dr. Vaughan never withheld treatment because one was penniless. He doctored them, pulled their teeth, advised them about their babies and often gave them free medicine. His services to the native mission were voluntary, so that in the aggregate his monthly income was small. It was sufficient for his needs, however; no one in Port Quentin lived more modestly than Ben.
Occasionally, when he had inadvertently shown a clean but frayed cuff or admitted that the breakfast had been so badly cooked that he had gone without, Laurette had felt for him an uneasy compassion, because, knowing that he was not the helpless type of male, she could be fairly sure that he simply did not care enough to bother with himself.
She hadn’t asked him why he had not come to dinner last Saturday. Ben had forestalled her by remarking offhandedly, “Sorry I didn’t get along to the party. I don’t suppose you missed me.”
“That’s not very kind,” she’d said.
“No, it isn’t. You’ll have to forgive me.” And he’d walked out.
Since then their contacts had been businesslike. Because their earlier comradeship was apparently gone she felt bound to make extra effort to please him. She rearranged the waiting-room and had the rugs cleaned, and in the “Casualty” veranda she had the wicker tables and chairs painted cream by a couple of ex-patients. Ben noticed the changes but his only acknowledgment of them was a lifted brow.
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