Portrait of Susan

by Rosalind Brett

She was breathing fast, through a hot, harsh throat. “And here’s something you can make up your mind to. I’m finished with Willowfield. If I entered your beastly house again I’d suffocate!”

  “Too bad,” he said, “because you’ll certainly enter the house again if I have to carry you in! Let’s move, before I have to make any more counter-threats.”

  Susan swung away and walked quickly down to the camp. David remained a pace behind her, and nothing more was said. Clive got out of the car, glanced noncommittally from one to the other and said he had been stacking the goods. The fire was kicked out, the sleeping-bags rolled. The drug, it seemed, had sent Deline into a sound sleep, so a bag of earth was strapped to the other bunk to give ballast and balance the weight, and the cabin closed up.

  By nine-thirty they were out on the road, heading northwest. Susan sat in the back seat among the boxes and stared resolutely at expanses of tall grass and forest, at beehive native huts and processions of Africans on their way with a variety of wares to the nearest town.

  You had to hand it to Deline; she took risks and played her hand cleverly. It looked as if she had won. Susan halted her thoughts; she was being horribly mean and would regret it for ever if Deline became seriously ill. She rubbed her face with her fists, willed herself to consider only Deline’s present plight. It couldn’t be too comfortable back there in the caravan, and if ... if David loved the woman he might be going through a private hell, too.

  True love is unselfish, she thought hollowly; I should want only David’s happiness, and if Deline is indispensable to that happiness...

  She could go no further; she decided hopelessly that she just wasn’t big enough to be happy for David and Deline.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THEY reached Willowfield around lunch-time next day, and Deline, looking wan and shaky, was at once transferred to her bed, and the doctor called. After half an hour in the bedroom the doctor emerged and gave his verdict. The extreme heat of Mozambique must have disagreed with Mrs. Maynton; with rest and a light diet she would soon be well.

  Because she didn’t know how else to act, Susan took over the nursing and coaxed Deline to eat a lightly cooked egg and a small salad, and when David came into the bedroom that evening Deline had slightly more color and was pretty in a pale blue bedjacket and a blue hair ribbon. He had been down into Kumati and bought some magazines, and she sat up with the glossy pages around her, and begged him to stay and talk. Susan went out, ostensibly to fetch iced water, but she went into the garden and eventually ended up at the cottage.

  Paul had finished dinner and was hurriedly writing up his rough accounts. “I was leaving it all till tomorrow,” he said. “Didn’t expect you back till Saturday—but it doesn’t matter.” A pause, then casually, “It was a good thing you weren’t too far away when Deline fell sick.”

  “Yes, it was. She’s much better now.”

  “So Carlsten told me.” He looked away from her, awkwardly. “I asked him, as a matter of fact why the dickens did David take her into that kind of country? Was he trying her out?”

  Susan’s heart was too cold for anger. “He took me, as well. I got through.”

  “But Deline has been ill!”

  “Not for some time. It wasn’t an infection of any kind; the doctor was sure of that.”

  Paul looked at her curiously. “What’s the matter with you? I’ve never heard you sound like that before.”

  She sighed. “I’m a little tired of Deline, and horribly tired of Willowfield. Doesn’t it sometimes seem to you as if nothing will ever be right again?”

  He shrugged, and pencilled a few figures into the book. “You know I don’t take life the way you do. It’s never any good looking into the future. I realize that more than ever now.”

  “You have to prepare for the future,” she said, and wandered to the bookshelf. “Have you heard anything more about Bartlett’s farm?”

  “David’s offer was accepted.”

  “That means you’ll be going there.”

  “I don’t know.” He sounded impatient. “I don’t want to think about it, Sue. Things change so quickly, and there’s no profit in trying to work them out on paper. There’ll be formalities, and I doubt whether David will be able to move in for at least a month. Almost anything can happen in that time.”

  She turned and looked at him. “But it’s the sort of job you’d like. You’d be getting what you want, without taking the least financial risk.”

  “All right, all right,” he said irritably. “I’ll make the decision when I’m asked, and not before. I’m not in a tearing hurry to leave Willowfield.”

  On the point of retorting, Susan checked herself. She took a book from the shelf, flicked over the pages without reading and then slipped the volume under her arm, as if it was what she had come for. She moved back towards the door. Because her heart was still stony within her, she spoke without expression.

  “You’ll be very foolish if you refuse to realize that you haven’t the smallest place in Deline’s scheme of things. It seems to be pretty certain that she and David are going to marry, and you can’t possibly want to stay on here watching events. At Bartlett’s you’ll be thirty miles away.”

  “When I need you to get out a blueprint for me, I’ll ask you!” He had stood up quickly, showing a face that seemed slightly thinner than Susan remembered it. “At the moment I’m perfectly satisfied with things the way they are—which is more, I rather think, than you can say for yourself. I’m not probing into whatever it is that makes you look like a ghost tonight, and I’d just as soon you took the same amount of interest in me.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said mechanically.

  His shoulders lifted with exasperation. “I’m not blaming you, Sue. You’re a girl, and you’re too young to understand. You and I got along because nothing big had ever come into our lives. Now that it has”—he looked away from her—“it’s fairly plain that we couldn’t be two more different people. That’s all there is to it.”

  She reached the doorway and nodded. “You’re probably right. I’ll leave you to your accounts.” A movement he made arrested her, and she stood there, just inside the room, waiting for him to speak.

  He hesitated a further moment before asking, “Will Deline be up tomorrow?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “Next time you see her you might tell her how sorry I am she was taken ill.”

  Susan squared her shoulders, gripped the book a little tighter. “Deline takes such things for granted, but I’ll tell her. Goodnight, Paul.”

  She went quickly back to the farmhouse and into her bedroom. She threw down the book and looked at herself fiercely in the mirror. Paul’s sunk, she told herself, and I thought I was, too. But I’m not; not while I still have some pride!

  She heard a footstep in the corridor, a tap on the door.

  “Yes? Who is it?”

  “Clive. Are you all right?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  “Susan, Deline has asked for one of those iced mint drinks you made for her this afternoon.”

  “It’s only soda water with two drops of peppermint essence and a sprig of mint. You might get Amos to make it.”

  He sounded amused. “Mutiny, Sweet Sue?”

  “No, I’m just sleepy. Goodnight.”

  It was a hollow victory because there in her bedroom with the windows wide she could hear the murmur of voices from the other room. But determinedly, Susan laughed to herself; it sounded like something delicate and brittle breaking inside her.

  The following day the sky was full of clouds and during the morning it rained, not for long but heavily. Deline got up just before lunch and was arranged in an easy chair near the french window. When she walked to the dining-room she clung laughingly to David, and she allowed him to serve her with delectable morsels from each dish. She pronounced the local bananas much sweeter than those they had picked in Mozambique, and wondered whether, next time he could arrange a week’s break, he would take
her to Johannesburg. Arriving there by plane she hadn’t seen the town at all, and stories of the Golden City had always interested her.

  They were the same four who had camped and danced, admired the Vasco da Gama gardens and watched manioc and rice and sugar cane growing in the lands of Portuguese East Africa, yet there was a more than subtle difference in the atmosphere. The slightly oppressive air at Willowfield wasn’t entirely to blame, nor could the change be attributed to the fact that their dress was civilized, the food and wines served in good china and glass. In some ways, thought Susan, it seemed that each had withdrawn to the position he had occupied before they had left, except that, now, her own situation was too completely hopeless to be borne.

  The afternoon was long and quiet. Deline rested in her room and decided to come out for tea, at four-thirty. Wearing white, she trailed gently into the living-room and found Clive there, alone. With the faintly mocking smile that tempered all his dealings with Deline these days, he saw her seated and placed his own chair so that he faced her.

  “Well, how is the charming invalid?” he asked softly.

  “Not too bad at all,” she replied carefully. “Is David coming in to tea?”

  “I don’t think so, but you’ll soon have the protection of Susan’s presence. She’s actually getting the tea, I believe. Useful child, Susan.”

  “Now, don’t be horrid to me, Clive. I’m not strong enough to get back at you.”

  One of his brows rose, cynically. “Heaven forbid that I should be horrid to a weak woman! It was a strange sort of illness, wasn’t it? Sudden, yet devastating. You had David very worried.”

  “I had myself worried, too. I was so afraid I’d picked up some tropical infection.”

  “Yet all you really had,” he said conversationally, “was a mental headache and a determination to eat nothing and inspire pity.”

  “I knew you’d take it this way.” Her voice trembled. “You haven’t the least bit of feeling, Clive, and it annoys you terribly when others prove they’re not the same. I really felt dreadful coming home in the caravan; you’ve no idea of the horrors of that journey!”

  “I can believe in the horrors, all right.” He laughed suddenly. “You’re really amazing, Deline. I have to hand it to you for sticking to the illness once you’d saddled yourself with it. I suppose it’s really accomplished all you were after. You had David on tenterhooks and blaming himself for allowing you to risk even a headache, and you’re back with him where you were at the beginning. He’s cossetting you again.”

  “I won’t listen to you, Clive!”

  “In your fragile condition you haven’t much option, my pet.”

  Slim fingers locked in her lap, she said in low, warning tones,” “David knows you for what you are. At a word from me he’d ask you to go.”

  “Possibly, but I’d say a few things after I’d packed my bag. But you won’t give the word—you haven’t that kind of courage. I stayed on till it was thought you were over the last indisposition, and I’ll do the same about this one. I like to leave things tidy.”

  “You’ll tell David at once that you’re going!”

  The brow rose again. “I won’t, you know. Oddly enough, I feel I’m needed here for a while longer...”

  He tailed off as Susan came into the room, and got up to help her with the tray. Deline accepted her cup and opened one of her magazines, and Clive leaned back in his chair and passed a word or two with Susan. He looked utterly at ease, and Susan decided that she had imagined the slight watchfulness in his eyes.

  That evening, though, she saw it there again. Paul had come over to dinner and happened to be in his best form. His glance, of course, went more often to Deline than to anyone else, and he seemed to be keyed up to showing himself at his most pleasant. David was less talkative than usual, and after the meal he made the excuse of work having piled up and went to the desk in his room. Paul sat with Deline, listened to her over-colored descriptions of Mozambique with his glance always on that pale, perfect face. It was then that Clive looked watchful. For a while Susan conjectured about it, but then she decided she didn’t care what was going on between them. She just couldn’t care, and keep her sanity!

  The following day was Saturday, and it dawned gloriously bright. The farm workers knocked off at noon, and because it also happened to be the last day of the month they had their pay packets and were accordingly high-spirited There was a tremendous noise of singing and laughter up at the native quarters, and straight after lunch they could be seen trooping by on the road, making for Kumati. They were dressed in their best, the men in European frocks, and they intended to pass the last Saturday of the month in traditional fashion, with sweets from the cafe, some gossip on the street corners and, in the early evening, a film show at the location hall.

  Changing her frock in her bedroom, Susan decided she couldn’t possibly spend another complete day in the house. Deline, as usual, was resting; Clive seemed to have found something to do in his room and there were no signs of David or Paul. If she went out quietly, she could be away in the jeep before anyone even realized she had gone. It would be a relief to have a talk with Mrs. Wardon, to get that seasoned yet refreshing slant upon local matters; she needed a diversion.

  She buttoned the green linen, secured the belt and dropped a handkerchief in one of the large pockets. Walking carefully, she went down to the hall, picked up the jeep keys from where they usually lay in the bottom of a brass bowl, and went out to the garage. She fitted the padlock key and turned it, heard a swift step and hurriedly steeled herself.

  “Going out?” asked David.

  She half-turned. “To Margina. Do you mind if I use the jeep?”

  “No. but it isn’t necessary. I’m going to Maringa myself, so you may as well go with me.”

  She drew in her lip, let go of the padlock. “It doesn’t really matter. It was merely something to do.”

  “That’s right,” he answered coolly. “It’s something to do—so you may as well do it.” His garage doors swung wide and were held by the steel grooves that received them. “Don’t mistake me. I was really going to Maringa, and if you’d started out a few minutes earlier I’d have caught you up. Slide into your seat. There’s room for three, so we can keep well apart.”

  His mood was hard and glittering; it was obvious in his tone and in the smile he directed her way as he switched on and backed out of the garage. He drove fast, commented only on the families of Africans who were winding their way happily down the kloof. Susan looked out of her window, found that her fingernails were curled tightly into her palms and tried to slacken. She had never been so far away from David, and somehow she seemed under a compulsion to worsen, the situation by shrinking further into her corner.

  At Maringa, she was glad to stay with Mrs. Wardon in the garden while David went indoors to see the Colonel.

  “So glad you came, David,” the older woman said as he moved away. “We don’t see nearly enough of you, and since you’ve been back at Willowfield we don’t see so much of Susan, either. Instead of gaining, we’ve actually lost!”

  David smiled at her. “I’ll try to come more often, but don’t blame me for Susan’s defection. She’s cultivated a temperament.” And he went into the house.

  Mrs. Wardon was happy. Yesterday’s brief rain had revitalized her garden and she had had a most wonderful morning of easy weed-pulling. Susan admired the pompom dahlias and the big cactus blooms, the new crop of Iceland poppies, the salpiglossis and the great flame-colored African daisies. And presently she sat in the veranda while Mrs. Wardon ordered the tea.

  The Colonel and David came out for tea, and the conversation drifted round the usual topics; crops, local sports, politics and the Wardons’ grandson.

  “My son and his wife are bringing the baby here in about three weeks,” said Mrs. Wardon eagerly. “Marriage has made a tremendous difference to Austin—you’ll hardly know him, David!”

  “An improvement?”

  “A happy ma
rriage is always an improvement. Of course, Austin is a little more dependent than you are, but I daresay even you would find life fuller and more interesting if you took a wife. As an old woman I’ll use my prerogative and be frank. You ought to marry, David!”

  “Quite,” he said. “I’ll see my marriage broker about it”

  “Plenty of time,” put in the Colonel easily. “David has only been back a couple of months.” And then, as if it were a natural consequence of the subject, “How is that cousin of yours—Mrs. Maynton? We heard she’d been ill.”

  “She’s better now, but the whole household seems a little upset. You know what I mean”—with a faintly malicious glance at Susan. “There’s a sprinkling of glass around and it’s unwise to go about barefoot”

  “I think an invalid in the house does do that to the other members of the household,” said Mrs. Wardon comfortably. “I like that pleasant Clive Carlsten. I know one should distrust smooth people, but what a treat they are these days, when most people don’t care what they say. He’s quite handsome, and so proper in his dress!”

  David nodded. “You have a friend in Susan; he’s her favorite, too. Not very talkative today, is she?”

  Very evenly, Susan said, “Why should I hand you openings for sarcasm? I came here because Maringa is always peaceful.”

  Mrs. Wardon looked a little surprised, but instead of offering comment she poured tea and asked what Lourenco Marques was like these days; she hadn’t been there for at least ten years. Tea was finished and the men were smoking when Bill Knight roared up the garden path on his motor-bike. Bill looked odd in a windbreaker and shorts, and his usually sunny face was drawn into mature lines.

  “Hallo,” he greeted them, shoving back his short black hair. “I could see you on the veranda as I came up the road, and thought that as Susan’s with you I’d drop by to let you have the news.”