by Isobel Chace
'I was tired,' she excused herself, 'I wouldn't have stood for it otherwise. He'd have slept in his basket—or else!'
'Perhaps you'll have better success with him tonight,' James said on a note of malice. 'You can console yourself that he's far less dangerous an invader than I should be.'
Annot pursed up her lips with disapproval. 'I shan't be doing battle with him tonight. You're not going to spend another night here, and I can't stay on at your house with you there, so I'll v. It'll be your turn to have the dog tonight! '
'He's called Sijui—'
'Meaning "I don't know"?'
'That's right. Every time anyone inquired what he was called that was the answer they got, so he finally came to be known by it. Jeremy just calls him The Dog.'
Annot squinted into the distance. 'I'm glad he has him. He doesn't seem to have much.'
'He has what he wants.'
But she shook her head, determined not to believe it. 'He was going to be the greatest photographer on earth. I remember him saying that one day he would hold exhibitions of his work all over the world. He wanted to make a name for himself then; I don't believe he's changed so much.'
`You haven't seen him for a long time,' James reminded her. 'People change. Don't expect too much when you do run across him.'
She would certainly expect less now she had seen the dismal but he called home, she thought. But why? That was the question. Why had he given up everything that he had and then disappeared without a word to anyone?
She brushed the tears out of her eyes, pretending it was dust that had blown up into her face. 'It doesn't matter what he is, he's still my uncle.'
`True, little one. Perhaps he sold all he had in order to gain the pearl of great price. It costs real money to hire hot-air balloons and make a dream come true.'
Her shoulders sagged with relief at the thought and she gave him a rather misty smile. `Yes, it could be that, couldn't it? A Range Rover doesn't cost nothing either, nor does the sort of camera he uses. He was always particular about his cameras.'
James frowned. 'What about you?'
'My first camera was an old one of his,' she told him, almost eagerly. 'I've graduated since those days, but I still believe in keeping it simple. The one I have suits me very well. I use different lenses, of course, including a zoom for most animal shots, but I keep the same base for them all.'
`What about developing?'
'I do my own. Most of the art lies in that side of photography. One can change the colours, fuzz the edges, do almost anything once one knows how. I enjoy messing about in the darkroom. It's a challenge, and when something really comes off there's nothing like it! It's like climbing Mount Everest. It's an achievement no one can take away from you.'
James gave her an odd look. 'Jeremy taught you well?' he grunted.
She shook her head, laughing. 'Jeremy hasn't that enthusiasm patience to teach anyone anything! But he fired my
for photography, though. The rest I learned at college in England.
'Passing out with honours?'
She opened her eyes wide. 'Top of the class,' she answered gently. 'I'm good, you know—more than capable of finishing Jeremy's assignment for him.'
James looked beyond her to the Samburu moran. 'We'll see. Are you ready to go back to the house?'
Annot nodded her agreement. 'Who is the Samburu?' she asked him.
'He used to be my gun-bearer before he became a junior warrior. There's a group of morons living on my land at the moment and he joined up with them, though he came originally from another group that lives in the south. We'll take him with us when we go down to Amboseli.'
This was the first Annot had heard about their going to any such place. 'Amboseli? Isn't that one of the game reserves?'
'Yes. It's right down on the Tanzanian border, tucked under Mount Kilimanjaro. That's where Jeremy was headed for when he left here. The wardens said he never checked in with them, but he might have got on to the reserve some other way. It was where he intended taking his photographs for this assignment of his, or so he said the night before he took off.'
Annot turned towards James in some embarrassment. 'Look,' she began awkwardly, 'you don't have to bother about me to the extent of going all that way. You have your farm to look after. 'I'll manage quite well by myself!'
'Like hell you will! My dear girl, you're as green as grass if you think that! I may not like it, but I'm landed with you, and that's that! So do me a favour and don't argue about it anymore. Okay?'
Yesterday, she might have thought he had no reason for taking charge of her in this high-handed way, but after seeing Jeremy's shack and knowing that he had spared her a night in its squalor, she had a greater respect for his judgment. 'Perhaps I should go back to England after all,' she muttered. The prospect hardly pleased and she held her breath until he made an impatient noise in the back of his throat and glared at her.
'Annot—'
She smiled her relief, her eyes dark with emotion. 'All right, all right,' she said quickly, 'I give in gladly! I expect you're right and that I wouldn't know how to begin to hire a balloon and so on, but you see, I don't want to impose on you either. There's nothing I can do for you in return, is there?'
He strode off ahead of her, his unbuttoned shirt flapping round his hips. He walked with the same arrogance and grace as the people he lived among, his head held high and his back straight. He looked as though he could walk for miles without even noticing the exercise. He had a strength that appealed to her greatly—and not only to her eye. She thought of him as a bastion protecting her, not only from the hazards of a country where the unexpected was always just round the corner, but in a more personal way, almost as though they were necessary to each other in some way as yet unspecified. Was she flattering herself to think that? she wondered. It was easy to see what he was giving to
their partnership—if partnership it was—but what was she giving back to him?
'James, you don't mind coming with me, do you?'
He turned his head and waited for her to catch up with him. 'What do you think?'
Something in his glance brought the colour burning into her cheeks; she could have danced and sung for the sheer joy of it. Instead, she fell into step beside him, her eyes meekly on the ground in front of her.
'I'm so glad,' she said.
'Didn't I say you were far too good for Jeremy?' he observed. He held out his hand to her. 'Partners?'
'Oh yes! I'll do my share, you know. I'm—'
A smile lingered at the corners of his mouth. 'Haven't you learned yet that people only do what they want to do when it comes down to it? You don't have to thank me, Annot Lindsay. In fact, you're more likely to dislike me intensely by the time we're through. I've become used to having my own way, and I don't appreciate it when some obstinate female argues the toss with me over something she knows nothing about.'
'Of course not,' she agreed.
'But you're still the one to do it?' he sighed.
'Probably,' she nodded. 'I'm sure you'll put me down yery nicely, though. You have a gentler touch than I thought at first.'
Apparently that startled him. He gave her an outraged look and then burst into laughter. 'Was I being pompous?'
'A little bit,' she smiled. 'But I expect it is aggravating to be landed with me and my problems—and without any warning—and you felt you had cause to be a trifle—a trifle autocratic!'
'Autocratic, yes; pompous, no,' he said. 'I wish I weren't so sure you're likely to break your neck by falling out of the balloon, or something equally terrible. I'm not ac-
customed to having women to look after and the prospect makes me nervous. I can't help worrying about you. You'd step into disaster without even knowing you'd done so! And I'd be responsible!'
Annot was silent for a long moment, then she said, 'I don't think you've known many women, have you? Didn't you have any sisters?'
'Not sisters, no.' Something in his tone alerted her to the fact that he
was laughing at her. She supposed it had been an unfortunate way of putting things. She had no doubt that most women found him attractive and probably went out of their way to tell him so.
'I didn't mean the women you've made love to, that's something quite different!' she went on blithely. 'I meant women you've done things with—your mother, for example?'
'My mother died when I was a boy. I was too young to have done many things with her.'
'There you are, then!' Annot said triumphantly. 'That explains your Victorian attitudes to us. You either put us on a pedestal, or cast us as sirens luring you to a fate worse than death—'
'My dear girl, surely that ought to be the other way round!'
'It doesn't matter.' She dismissed his objection with the contempt it deserved. 'The point I'm making is that you don't know women as people at all! We're not very different from men, you know.'
'You think not?'
She pursued, 'I can look after myself—you'll see!'
He laughed. 'That's what bothers me most of all, that you think you're the original iron maiden. You'd be less of a handful if you were more realistic about your own capabilities. If I could, I'd leave you here and go to Amboseli by myself, but I don't suppose you'd stand for that?'
'Certainly not! That's exactly what I mean about you. You'd like to have all the fun by yourself and then come home and be acclaimed for your masculine triumphs! Well, let me tell you, that sort of attitude went out with Queen Victoria!'
'More's the pity. Remember, Africa isn't your friendly English countryside. Africa sometimes requires brute strength to deal with it, and that's something no woman has, my dear. In Africa, the sexes still have to play their own roles to survive very often, and that's no bad idea to my way of thinking.' He spoke with a wry humour that she found appealing.
I'm not against the feminine image,' she confessed, 'as long as it doesn't get too much in the way of what I want to do.'
'I'm glad to hear it,' he murmured, and she knew that somehow or other she had got the worst of the argument, even though she was still quite convinced that her reasoning was better on the subject than his.
Her feeling of mild exasperation with him prevailed all the way back to the house, Not even the sight of a lilac-breasted roller, bright with colour, could rid her of the conviction that he had not been arguing at all, that he had been so sure of himself that he had done no more than humour her by going through the motions as one would with a bright child busy making a fool of itself.
'You're lucky to have such a garden!' she exclaimed as the bird took wing and disappeared over the top of the trees.
'It was more planning and hard work than good luck,' James responded. 'Keeping the baboons out was quite a problem in the beginning. They tore up everything that came up, eating a bit here and there, and then passing on to wreak havoc somewhere else. It was quite a struggle to persuade them that this is my territory and not theirs.'
'But you managed it?'
He smiled. 'Yes, I managed it. I usually do when I set my mind to something.'
Annot detected a warning to herself in that remark, but the put it resolutely out of her mind, because she was still in a state of shock over the shack where Jeremy chose to live and her own relief that James had not taken her at her word and made her sleep there.
The French windows were still standing open as they walked across the lawn towards the house. Sijui, the dog, was on guard on the terrace, his attention wholly taken up by someone in the shadows of the room beyond.
'You have visitors,' Annot remarked. 'Shall I make myself scarce?'
'Are you ashamed to be seen with me?' he retorted. He linked his fingers about her wrist in case she should think to disappear without his consent. 'It's probably Judith,' he went on casually, 'and no doubt Dorcas too. Sijui has a strong partiality for children.'
At that moment the dog saw them coming and uttered a yelp of joy over his shoulder, tempting Dorcas to join him in his welcome of James and Annot. The child, shy at first, came slowly on to the terrace, saw Annot in her turn, and came tearing across the lawn towards her.
'I didn't know you'd be here!' she said with obvious delight. 'Isn't Sijui an intelligent dog? He knew who I was immediately although he'd never seen me before.'
'Dorcas!'
The child froze, and made a quick face at Annot. 'Mama won't be at all pleased to see you here!' the whispered fiercely out of the side of her mouth. 'You know! I told you—' She caught James' eyes on her and came to an abrupt halt. Engagingly, she smiled up at him. 'I'm Dorcas Drummond,' she said in quite different tones. 'How d'you do, Mr Montgomery?'
He shook hands with her gravely. 'How d'you do, Dorcas?'
But the moment for good manners was past. `Is Sijui your dog? Could I borrow him sometimes during the holidays? I've never had a dog to play with—'
'Dorcas, I've already told you that you're not to touch that animal. This isn't England! Dogs are liable to all sorts of unpleasant diseases out here.' Judith Drummond rose from her chair in a single, elegant movement. `Hello there, James. I took you at your word and brought Dorcas to see you at the first opportunity.' She too became aware of Annot, and the smile on her face changed to a frown. 'Have we chosen a bad moment?'
`Not at all. Annot Lindsay is Jeremy Lincoln't niece—' 'Poor you!' said Mrs Drummond.
'Why?' Dorcas inquired. 'I like Jeremy. He's very funny most of the time.'
Annot's eyes sparkled. 'Isn't he?' she agreed. 'We used to have tremendous fun together when I was your age.'
James gave her a speaking look. `Sijui is Jeremy's dog,' he told Dorcas, 'but for some peculiar reason he prefers to live with me.' He quelled Judith Drummond's impatient gesture with a slow smile. 'He's a bit fat, but he's healthy enough. Don't fuss, Judith. Dorcas won't come to any harm playing with Sijui, but outside, I think, don't you?'
Dorcas uttered a whoop of joy and disappeared down the garden with the fat little terrier close behind her. Halfway down the path, she turned and came back. 'Will you come too, Annot?' she asked politely. `We could play pig-in-the middle if you came too.'
Annot was only too glad to leave the other two alone together. She took Dorcas's proffered hand in hers and ran with her across the springy carpet of the bright green lawn. Sijui came panting after them, a broad smile on his canine face, caused partly by the heat of the day and partly by his
pleasure in having Dorcas's whole attention centred on his portly personage. Dorcas collapsed on to the grass beside him and patted the back of his head very gently.
`Do you think he likes me?' she asked with anxiety. `He certainly seems to,' said Annot.
`Good. Mama said it was very important that Mr Montgomery should like me, but I'd rather Sijui did. I should think he has very good taste, shouldn't you?'
Annot sat down on the grass too. 'With Jeremy away, he'll be glad to have someone make a fuss of him.' She thought Sijui could have shown some sign of recognising his master's name, but the dog plainly couldn't have cared less about Jeremy's absence. He had made his own life where he was comfortable and well-fed, and owed absolutely nothing to his errant master. Briefly, Annot envied him his confidence as to his welcome in his chosen home, wishing that she could be half as sure that James had fed and watered her with the same indulgence he had shown Jeremy's dog. Jeremy's niece was a different proposition, it seemed. She couldn't accept the run of his house and the use of his bed, even if it were offered to her. It was much more difficult being a human being, and a female one at that, than she had ever imagined.
`I wonder if he likes chocolate?'
Annot brought her mind back to Dorcas and Sijui with difficulty. 'Probably, but it isn't good for him to have too many sweets,' she answered. 'He's fat enough already.'
`Not fat,' Dorcas objected. `Fat people wobble and Sijui is quite hard. He has a lot of muscle, that's all.
So they were both given to wishful thinking, Annot thought ruefully; and she had by far the lesser excuse of the two of them. For w
hy should James Montgomery study her comfort when she was nothing more than a nuisance to him, and related to a greater nuisance to boot?
Annot lay flat on her back, putting her arm up over her
eyes. There was a pleasantly sensual feeling to the grass and drowsy sound of a bumble-bee making its rounds of the moonflowers close by them. She half-hoped that when she shut her eyes, she would shut out the memory of the way Judith Drummond had looked at her.
Her presence had been a decided shock to the other woman at first, but she had soon recovered herself. After that her face had reflected her amused contempt for anyone who might compete with her for James' attention. Was she so sure of her position in her life? Perhaps she had reason to be—Annot had no way of knowing, and she could only wonder that the thought of it should depress her so much.
Dorcas contented herself with talking to the dog. Her chatter was borne away on the gentle breeze, having a soporific effect on her other'companion. Annot didn't even notice when the flood of admiring words came to a sudden and slightly resentful halt.
'You mustn't let my little daughter tire you out, Miss Lindsay,' Mrs Drummond's voice drawled from a long way off. 'As a matter of fact I want to talk to you myself. Do you mind?'
Annot opened her eyes in time to see Dorcas's mother place a garden chair in the shade under a Nandi flame-tree and sit down in it.
'You don't have to bother about Dorcas,' Annot assured her. 'I like her. I liked her from the first moment I set my eyes on her on the plane.'
'She likes you too,' Mrs Drummond returned, just as though there was no accounting for her daughter's strange taste in friends. 'Perhaps you remind her of your uncle— isn't it? She hung on his every word the last time she was our here.'
'Jeremy has a way with children,' Annot agreed, sitting up the better to cope with the taunts that lay beneath the other woman's would-be friendly tones.
`Which you seem to have inherited. Or perhaps it's because you're still little more than a schoolgirl yourself that Dorcas feels she has so much in common with you. James says that you fell over yourself to have that strange little dog sleep in your bedroom with you last night—I expect you felt strange all on your own in the house?'
