“What will you drink, Lisa?” he inquired.
“A small sherry, please.”
Astra broke in. “Give her gin, darling. Sherry is an old maid’s drink, and Lisa, will never be one of those. She’s much too attractive.” The brown wings of her eyebrows rose at Jeremy. “Whisky for you, my dear?”
She was in a sparkling mood. Her dusty pink brocade cocktail suit was of the usual taut and tantalizing cut, and she wore tiny circlets of diamonds in her ears and a single, very beautiful, solitaire ring on her right hand. Her longish features were raised to catch the soft glow of the lights, and her eyes became deceptively deep and tender.
Mark did not give Lisa gin. He put the sherry glass into her hand, let his fingers feel hers and said very quietly, “You’re chilly. Down it, child, and try to relax. I want what’s best for you, Lisa ... do believe that.”
The dining table was an oval one, set under a wide window over which heavy red-and-gold curtains had been pulled. Except for the ventilator shaft this might have been the dining room of an English country house. The chairs were tapestry and mahogany, and the rich tan of the table gleamed between plain linen table mats and gave back the glitter of glass and the pool of light shed by an electric chandelier. In the centre of the table gardenia blooms floated in a long yellow bowl; white waxen petals resting upon dark, glossy green leaves in a bed of saffron.
Mark was across the table from Lisa. She saw him behind those static candles, with shadows beneath 'the high cheekbones and a darkness in the deep-set eyes which robbed them of color. Smiling and enigmatic, he poured a light wine and eventually helped himself from the tray of hors d’ouevres served by the steward.
For Lisa it was a ghastly meal. Jeremy at her left ate stolidly, as though stoking against an imminent ordeal, and at her right Astra tried a forkful of most things. Mark seemed to be eating more or less as usual, too, but Lisa found it nearly impossible to swallow a single mouthful. The conversation, managed by Mark, winged back and forth with ease, but Lisa took no verbal part in it. Her smile had become so fixed that it hurt, and though she still felt shivery, spots of high color had appeared in her cheeks and the hand clenched in her lap clutched a sweat-damp handkerchief.
At last the table was swiftly cleared while the four transferred to the enveloping chairs, about a low table. Coffee and Chartreuse were brought, a huge box of cigarettes was opened and the stewards vanished.
“It’s odd how quickly these three weeks have passed,” said Astra, inhaling gently. “On another ship it might have been a bore—that’s why I insisted on sailing with you, Mark. You’ve saved my sanity more than once in the past and I was looking to you to do it again.”
“Nonsense,” he said with the lazy inflexion that invariably set Lisa yearning. “You’re the sanest woman I know, Astra. In fact, you’re the only woman of my acquaintance who combines an excellent business brain with physical beauty.”
“Why, thanks, my sweet!” Astra gave a brief, surprised laugh. “Such a compliment from you is a compliment indeed. Sometimes, though, I’m a little doubtful about my business acumen. I begin to wonder whether it isn’t built on emotion. You may not believe it, but I can be emotional in my own right!”
Quite what Astra was getting at remained obscure to Lisa—but not, apparently, to Mark, or to Jeremy. Mark’s glance at Astra was comprehending and reassuring, and Jeremy shifted and swallowed his coffee with the air of one marshalling reinforcements behind defences he had not yet made use of.
The next few minutes were the longest Lisa had ever lived through. Astra talked smoothly, in lovely tones, Mark slipped in remarks and Jeremy, the poise he had gained from contact with Astra only slightly askew, contrived to look fairly pleasant and suave, if somewhat preoccupied. Lisa was quiet and still; her unsmoked cigarette smouldered away in the metal ashtray, its slow spiral of smoke diminishing as her dreams had diminished.
The seeming casualness was like a veil which cloaked a stark tension; at least, it was to Lisa. Her nerves were strung tight, awaiting the subtle heightening of the atmosphere which would mean that Astra was ready to cross swords.
CHAPTER TEN
The end of the conversation piece came sooner than Lisa expected, and from Mark, not from Astra. Perhaps he had been watching the pale young face and decided to cut short her silent suffering; or it may have been his habit of forcing others to face difficulties without delay and flinching which made him lean forward and press out his, cigarette with the resoluteness of decision.
“Well, Lisa,” he said on an interrogative note, “are you going to give yourself the pleasure of six months with Astra in South Africa?”
At this frontal attack Lisa naturally hesitated, and it was Astra who spoke next, in a gay and kindly tone calculated both to disarm and encourage. “Yes, Lisa! Are you going to be my secretary? Remember I’m not only offering you a six months’ engagement and expenses paid, but you may name your own salary. You know how much you need; I don’t.”
The friendliness and charm rendered Lisa speechless. They were so unexpected, so hard to circumvent. And it had to be at this moment, when her mind was made up and she had been sure of Astra’s enmity, that Mark should regard her closely with an urgency akin to pleading, which she could not dissects Did he want so badly that she should work for the actress? And if he did ... why? There must be some deeper reason, apart from his desire that Astra should have whatever her fancy lighted upon, something that he ought to be able to explain.
Coaxingly, Astra added, “Come now, Lisa, you haven’t a leg to stand on. You’ve no particular job to return to in England, and if you do eventually take up nursing you’ll be glad you grasped this chance of a spell in a sunny country. Spend a week with your Dr. Veness, if he needs you, and then travel up by train. Jeremy and I will fix you up at our hotel—won’t we, Jeremy?”
The young man looked awkwardly at the tip of his cigarette but let a smile hover about his mouth, though he said nothing. By this time Lisa had recovered most of her balance. She reminded herself that this was Astra Carmichael, who eight times a week in Vale of Tears had made women dab an eye and men bite a lip. Unaccountably, the woman had set her will to winning Lisa; Lisa first, after which Jeremy would follow without coercion.
“I’m not a secretary,” she said with a peculiar lack of emotion, “and to be candid I haven’t any inclination to be trained as one. It may sound strange, but I’m looking forward to going back to the hospital.”
It was true. At her old job, or training as a nurse, she would have no time to fret and fuss about the past; there, life was always demanding and very much in the present, and from tomorrow onwards that was what Lisa most wanted.
Astra’s kindliness held. “I do see your point of view, my dear, but I feel you’ll be making such a mistake if you hasten back to England without having a good look at Africa. With me you’d have plenty of freedom and a thoroughly good time. The socialites in Johannesburg are already planning parties for me, which you’d attend, and most weekends we’d spend in the African country-side. You’d be amazed at the trouble they go to in these places to make an actor’s stay a pleasant one. Do say yes, Lisa.” Her manner was insidiously warm and propitiating, but since Lisa’s last talk with Mark her sensibilities had been numbed, so that nothing had significance beside the fact that tomorrow was the end of a bitterly beautiful world.
It took no effort for Lisa to say, “I’m sorry if I’m being horribly ungrateful, but your proposition doesn’t attract me. I think, after all, I must be just an English suburbanite.”
Mark demanded clearly, “Would you be afraid to live away from England?”
“Not afraid,” she answered slowly, looking away from him. “I know England, that’s all.”
“Then you are afraid,” he said, not ungently, “afraid of the unknown. You’re anxious to get back to the cosy corner where nothing can threaten you. That’s not the way to live, Lisa, and if you’re honest with yourself you’ll admit it’s not the way you want
to live. Staying on in South Africa is not much of a risk. Astra’s travelled a good deal; she’ll look after you, and she’s right about the country; it’s enthralling.”
Lisa turned towards him, met his intensely blue gaze for a second. His persuasiveness in this mood was hard to combat. “If I fall below your standards I can’t help it,”'' she said in low tones. “Both you and Miss Carmichael expected too much of me.”
Astra’s glance was raised to Mark’s and she shrugged. To Lisa she said quietly, cryptically, “We’re brutes, Mark and I. We’re so much alike in determining to get what we’re after that we don’t always bother with other people’s feelings.” She lifted a sharply playful finger at Jeremy “I rather took it that it was your intention to keep Lisa in South Africa, Jeremy. If I’ve caused any embarrassment, I do apologize.”
It was a stage gambit—the dropping of a well-padded brick. Lisa saw it because any dramatic episode of which she was part habitually impressed itself upon her with startling clarity, and because she was unable to take Astra at her own valuation; she could never think of the woman as anything but an actress.
Jeremy side-stepped the brick rather neatly. “If I could offer Lee the sort of home she deserves I’d marry her right away—if she’d have me, that is. You don’t know how many times during this trip I’ve wished myself ten years older.”
Astra laughed softly and reached over to tap the back of his hand with a long pink nail. “I’m glad you’re not, my dear. You wouldn’t have borne with me nearly so patiently. It’s wonderful to know I can, depend on you.”
There followed one of those pauses in which the silence is almost tangible. Lisa, half-aware of a sharpness in Mark’s face and a glitter of exasperation in his eyes; felt her spine go rigid as a rod. It was bad enough opposing Astra, but with him lined up on the woman’s side the whole situation became insupportable.
When Mark spoke, however, his tones were still ordinary and level. “Well, Carne, why don’t you come out into the open? You can’t shelter for ever behind Lisa.”
“That’s rather unfair. I’ve been honest with Astra,” Jeremy defended himself, without vehemence but with an access of color. “There’s nothing I’d like better than to be able to fall in with her wishes whole-heartedly, but I do have other commitments. I’ve thought this over night after night...”
“And talked it to rags with Lisa!”
“Well, yes. Lee is one of those people who never get high notions about themselves, and she reminded me of my limitations. She didn’t let me forget the debt I owe my parents, either.” He stared straight at Astra. “You’ve been so good to me that I hate to ask for further time, but the way I’m placed I just have to. Tomorrow I’ll see my people and put it to them. If I may, I’ll telegraph you in Johannesburg the following day.”
During the next minute or so neither Mark nor Astra paid much heed to Jeremy. Lisa was the focus of their attention. She felt as if they had sent out white-hot wires to prod her, but if she had had the courage to look at Mark she would have seen no hostility in him. She drew a breath which shuddered a little as it passed her throat.
Astra, still mistress of the situation but slightly peremptory with the beginnings of anger, phrased a question: “So, Jeremy, it is Lisa we have to thank for your procrastination?” She paused, and went on; “I guessed it, but tried to believe she had your welfare too much at heart to deprive you of such an opportunity. I do think you should stick to the bargain and sign the contract before we dock. After all, darling,” with a sweet, artificial smile, “all our work together has been to that end. Go and see your parents, by all means, but do remember we open in ten days. I don’t think it is too much to ask that you sign up tonight.”
Jeremy hung on to his smile, but patently he was feeling wretched. Strangely, Lisa liked him better at that moment than she had ever done before; like this, he was well worth helping. Some of her spirit returned.
“Jeremy’s right,” she said. “Throwing aside the career which his people made possible for a problematical future on the stage is too big a step for him to take without their knowledge. It’s...” she slurred the syllables because there was no glossing their import; “it’s mean of anyone to demand it of him.” Conscious of a swift wave of antagonism in the atmosphere she hurried on more recklessly, “You’re not concerned about Jeremy at all. To you he’s merely a prop upon which to drape your own personality—but unfortunately for you he’s not really stage-struck; he can still see straight.” Emotion welled up, caused a tightness in her chest and an ache behind her eyes. She got to her feet. “You’ll never forgive this, but I have to say it...”
“Lisa!” Mark, too, was standing, and eyeing her shrewdly. “There’s no need for you to go on. Your feelings are a lot more transparent than you intended to make them.” He was aloof again, dispelling the illusion of the hint of gentleness. “Let’s say you’ve won, shall we? Your reasoning may be haywire, but you’ve stuck to it—perhaps it’s backed up by something stronger than the mere business aspect.” With deliberation he bent and selected a cigarette. “Shall we all have a nightcap?”
But Lisa was in no condition to endure more. “Not for me, thanks,” she said almost inaudibly. “Goodnight ... everyone.”
She did not know whether any of them answered. Mark was at the door to bow her out but he made no parting observation; nor could she have replied if he had. She was bone tired, but oddly thankful that the dinner she had anticipated with hope and fright was over.
Automatically, she exchanged a few comments with a woman in the lounge, and then, inevitably, she sought the dark end of the deck and closed her fingers tightly over the rail.
This was her last night aboard the Wentworth. In a week or two she would be sailing again, homeward, but on a different ship, with different people. Now, a phase of her existence which she knew to be important was narrowing to a bleak and painful conclusion. Well, the heavens might collapse but one had to go on, and it was no use wishing she had never heard of the Wentworth.
No, she was not sorry to have known Mark, only anguished that he had caused her to set so impossibly high a standard; he was head and shoulders above other men. From now on any man who might become her friend would be measured and found lacking. She could never marry anyone else because Mark had taken all, and left nothing to offer. Strange that a man she scarcely knew could do that.
There was no such thing, she would have said a month ago, as unrequited love; one-sided emotion she would have written off as infatuation. She was wiser now.
Durban was sighted at eleven next morning. South Africans crowding the rail pointed out the Bluff and the Berea. They even pretended they could see individual hotels on the Esplanade. To the newcomer the city was a whitish mass against the lush, undulating greenness of subtropical trees and sugar cane.
Except for a slight tan Lisa and Nancy were as pale as on the day they had embarked at Southampton. Their luggage was packed and long before they could hope to land both were trimly attired, Nancy in a blue and white striped frock with large bows on her pigtails, and Lisa in her green linen suit and a white blouse.
Lisa knew she must keep a clear head. She had to submerge her private feelings and prepare to meet Dr. Veness. Possibly he would not remember her very well; he had never written to her personally, so now they would meet almost as strangers. But Nancy, provided she took to her father’s house, would ease matters along.
Most intolerable of Lisa’s present reflections was that she would straightway have to think about her return voyage. She would have liked to look forward to a long vacuum of busy peace in which her scars might heal and her mind make ready for whatever the future might hold. Further weeks aboard ship in enforced idleness appeared, at this point, nightmarish.
She walked Nancy rather aimlessly about the decks and at intervals they watched the nearing shore.
“It smells of spice,” said Nancy half-heartedly. “Do you suppose I’ll ever get used to it?”
“Of course you wi
ll,” Lisa answered mechanically. “Everything will be new and interesting to begin with, but one day soon you’ll realize that certain things have become familiar and lovable, Perhaps sometime your Aunt Anthea will come out to see you.”
“And Mrs. Browne?”
Lisa smiled. "Hardly Mrs. Browne. She has a husband and a large family.”
“She thinks South Africa is full of savages.”
“You’ll have to write and tell her differently.”
In Lisa’s memory Mrs. Browne had become inextricably entangled with her propensity for telling the tea-leaves. Were the old dear to learn how abundantly her powers had been proved, she would mournfully gloat and offer sympathy and more advice from the tea-leaves.
The two had paused near a group, who were excitedly sharing a pair of binoculars. Lisa at once became aware that the ship’s engines had ceased to throb, and at the same moment Nancy exclaimed,
“Look, there’s Captain Kennard! He’s coming to us, Lee.”
She was right. Mark came from the direction of the bows, striding purposefully. He gave them no greeting, but said, “Will you come to the cabin on the lower deck? I want a word with you.”
“Me, too?” demanded Nancy.
He seemed on the point of snapping a brusque negative, but her small eager face checked him. “Yes. You, too.”
Lisa fought against a force too strong for her. She held out a shaking hand. “I’d rather say goodbye here, Mark.”
“I’m not saying goodbye,” he said offhandedly, and then in an undertone, “For heaven’s sake move. We have a large and increasing audience.”
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