The House of the Scissors

by Isobel Chace

  A lilac-breasted roller came into the garden at tea time and had a dust bath close to where she was working, its green back fluffed up, almost hiding the fantastic shades of blue and mauve of its breast. Then she moved her foot by accident and the bird flew away, its round, black eye suspicious of her and the clacking typewriter in front of her. The incident brought home to her how much there was of beauty in Africa. Not only the birds, but the gay, flowering shrubs, and the bright cannas in the flower beds. It would be hard to be satisfied with the more muted colours of an English garden after this, even if she were lucky enough to ever have one.

  But the sun eventually faded from the sky, the scarlet, gold and vivid green of sunset giving way to the velvet blackness of the night, and Ruth came out to help her in with the typewriter and Lucien’s notes.

  “You’ve just got time to have a drink before changing for dinner,” she announced. “Do you want a hand, or something?”

  “No, thank you,” Arab assured her. Despite the length of the afternoon, she still wanted time to think which dress she was going to wear, and whether she should put her hair up to herself look older, or leave it hanging down her back as she usually did.

  Ayah came in to help her dress. “You lookin’ pretty, memsahib!” she exclaimed as she wound a stole about Arab’s shoulders. “As pretty as I seen you! Bwana Lucien very lucky man!”

  Arab looked at herself in the glass, carefully applying some eye-shadow and just the right amount of powder to hide the freckles on her nose.

  “I hope so,” she said. “I almost wish Sandra hadn’t gone to England, though. Do you think he would be taking me to see the Giriama dancing if she had been here?”

  Ayah rolled her eyes and giggled, her massive body shaking up and down. “You jokin’, memsahib?”

  Arab shook her head. She thought she looked pale despite her make-up, but it was too hot to wear anything greasy.

  “You not jokin’? Don’t you know that the Bwana told her to go away. He say to her that she do your job very well and why don’t she try it. He don’t want her hanging round the house. He tell her flat! He even tell her to use your seat on the aeroplane. You stayin’ right here with him, he say! Don’t you know that?”

  “No, I didn’t know,” Arab said.

  “And he send for Memsahib Ruth,” Ayah continued, well away now she had got started. “He send for her to come right home at once because he met you and want you to stay!”

  “But she didn’t say anything about it to me!” Arab protested.

  “Why else you think she come?” Ayah demanded belligerently. “She come quick!” She threw back her head and roared with delighted laughter. “Ayah knows! Ayah hears many things!”

  That Arab could believe! She glanced at the large African woman in the glass, smiling mischievously, while she screwed her ear-rings into her ears. When she had done, she stood up and hugged the massive woman in a sudden excess of joy.

  “Will you help me down the stairs?” she said.

  Lucien was waiting for her in the hall. He was wearing his jade green dinner jacket and was as handsome as he had ever looked. He was holding a pair of crutches in his hands and he smiled up at her as she slowly descended the stairs.

  “I thought these might make you more mobile,” he said. “You can try them out this evening, as long as you don’t use them to run away from me!”

  “Why should I?” she retorted, her head erect “I’m not afraid of you!”

  “No?” he grinned.

  She blushed a little. “You do have a heavy hand,” she admitted. “But I have almost forgiven you for that!” They, laughed together. Lucien handed the crutches to Ayah, sweeping Arab up into his arms and out of the house into his car. Before letting her go, he kissed her gently on the cheek where he had slapped her. “I shan’t beat you tonight,” he whispered. “That’s a promise!”

  “I should hope so!” she said bravely. She wished he didn’t have to take his arms away because she felt lonely without the comfort of his touch. “Is it far to the village?” she asked him.

  “About ten miles.” He stowed the crutches away in the back of the car and climbed in beside her. “You’re looking very pretty tonight, Arab.”

  “And quite, quite grown up?”

  “Yes, my rare, long-legged bird, quite grown up.”

  “Well, that’s a relief!” she murmured, smiling at her own impertinence. “I was beginning to think that you’d never believe it!”

  She could see his grin in the silver light from the moon. “Is that what you were trying to prove? I thought you’d decided you could do very well without me?”

  “No,” she said. “I said I didn’t want to have an affair with you.”

  His knuckles shone white against the wheel. “That’s too bad! Because I want to have a life-long affair with you, and I’m accustomed to getting my own way.”

  She trembled inwardly. “With me? Are you sure?”

  He nodded briefly. “Darling, I’m ashamed to admit that for a while I didn’t have marriage in mind. I’ve always thought it wouldn’t be fair to any woman to tie her up to someone like me. I liked my freedom to take off to the farthest part of the world whenever the fancy took me. I’m in love with my work, and I never thought to find a woman who would understand that love. Then, if I had a wife, I would want children, and children can’t be shuffled round the world like suitcases. But if we take Hilary for Ruth, she can look after our lot at other times—”

  Arab stared into the darkness. She had never thought about children of her own, children with dark, arrogant features like Lucien’s! Their children!

  “I suppose you’ve discussed it all with Ruth?” she murmured.

  “I had to tell her something. It took some doing to get her to fly back from Ethiopia! But I knew you wouldn’t stay unless I did something! And I couldn’t trust myself not to do something desperate if I had you to myself. You’ve tried me pretty highly, Arabella Burnett! Flirting with Sammy Silk and kissing Jacques Bouyer, and managing to look as innocent and young as Hilary, while all the time I wanted to do much more to you than just kiss you!”

  Arab swallowed hard. “I—I thought you wanted a brief encounter—”

  “What else could I say?” he demanded. “You were here for exactly three weeks! And you’re so desperately young! It seemed little better than kidnap to rush you into marriage before you had time to look round. I’d have gone mad if you hadn’t broken your ankle! When I kissed you in the House of the Scissors, I knew I couldn’t let you go—”

  “But you were going to all the same!” she exclaimed bitterly.

  “That’s all you know, my pet. It was then that I thought of Sandra!”

  “I thought you were in love with her,” Arab told him shyly. “In a way,” she amended. “I thought you’d decided to marry her anyway. She thought so too.”

  “Sandra never thought anything of the kind!” he said so firmly that she had to believe him. “She has a great sense of the dramatic and she can’t resist striking attitudes. It may have appealed to her that Ruth should marry her brother and she should marry me, but she would have loathed being my wife, just as she loathed my work and everything to do with it. I daresay Mr. Silk will suit her very well.”

  Arab threaded her fingers together with a fierce concentration. “Don’t you mind—even a little bit—that she wants to marry Sammy?”

  He brought the car to a stop and turned to face her with an air of triumph. “Jealous, Arab?” he asked her.

  She thought of pretending that she was nothing of the kind, but she abandoned the idea at once. “Of course I’m jealous,” she said instead. “I’ve been unbearably jealous of her ever since that first afternoon, when she walked into your sitting room as though she owned it!”

  He laughed delightedly. “I thought you disliked me! I thought so even more when you declared that I liked my women to be sycophants! That was a cruel thrust!”

  “Did I?” She could not remember doing so. She sighed.
“I wanted to make such an impression on you and I felt such a fool. I wish I had one half of your confidence!”

  “Sandra isn’t so bad,” he said. “She was quite agreeable to trying to do you out of a job—”

  “Very kind of her!” Arab said dryly.

  Lucien laughed again. “It didn’t matter once you had broken your ankle, but if you hadn’t, darling, there was no other hope of keeping you here!”

  Arab gave him an indignant look. “I’m surprised you didn’t make sure that I did break something! Perhaps you did! Perhaps you deliberately tripped me up!”

  “I didn’t think of it,” he said slowly, “or I might have done.”

  “I knew it! You had it all arranged! You won’t allow me a say in anything—”

  He reached out for her, drawing her close against him. “Absolutely nothing!” he agreed smugly. “Be still! I want to kiss you!”

  She went into his arms with an eagerness that shocked her. He held her close, not hurrying her at all, but finally his mouth found hers and, with a little sob of delight, her arms went up behind his neck and she gave herself up to the warmth and excitement of his embrace.

  “Love me?” he asked at last, pulling gently at her hair.

  “You know I do,” she said. “Do you love me?”

  “More than I thought it possible to love any woman! I hope your parents come quickly, my sweet, for I don’t fancy waiting long for you!”

  She smiled, completely happy. “You won’t have to!” she said.

  They had dinner at the hotel. Arab strove to reduce some sort of order to her appearance before they reached the lights of the reception room, but Lucien only laughed at her and ran his fingers through her hair all over again.

  “You look as though you’ve been kissed!” he mocked her as he held the door for her to enter.

  “I ought to care,” she answered, “but I want the whole world to know that you’ve chosen me.” Her eyes were soft as they peeked up at him. “I can still hardly believe it myself.”

  “You need a lot of convincing!” he teased her.

  “But not right now!” she exclaimed, side-stepping round him hastily with crutches slipping dangerously on the marble floor.

  He grinned. “It will be dark at the Giriama village, I’ll see what I can do about convincing you then!”

  “Beast!” she murmured.

  It was a wonderful experience to be wined and dined by Lucien. There was no one she knew in the dining room and she supposed that Jacques and Jean-Pierre had gone back to their rocket project. She was glad that there was no one there but themselves, for Lucien was in a sparkling mood and she had to give all her attention to parrying his thrusts. Her happiness was still too new for her not to feel shy with him, but she was aware of a new gentleness, almost tenderness, she had never suspected he possessed, and the knowledge that he was as vulnerable as she, sent little waves of sheer bliss racing round her veins. Watching him across the table, she could no longer doubt that he loved her.

  Arab had no idea what she ate, any more than she had any idea of which way Lucien drove to get to the village. She loved the velvety softness of the nighty with its strange, tropical smells and sounds. She saw the sea briefly, unmistakable for its inky blackness edged with the white of the waves breaking against the shore. But then they went inland, the trees grew high all round them and, she thought, mysterious in the darkness.

  The clearing in the village was lit by hurricane lamps hung around the huts and from the trees. Some wooden forms had been placed round in a rough semi-circle, and a few Europeans were already seated on them having been brought there from the various hotels round about. On the other side of the circle, the villagers sat in groups, the women to one side and the men on the other. Lucien told Arab that most of the women would have danced themselves before they married and that they provided the most critical part of the audience. The men were mostly young, pretending an indifference to everything that went on, although it was here at the dance that most of them took the first steps towards choosing a bride.

  The girls themselves were very young. The smallest came on first, walking their way through a simple number while their proud parents beat the rhythm out for them on the drums.

  Lucien put his arm round Arab and drew her back against his shoulder. “Tired, darling?” he asked her.

  She shook her head. “Just happy,” she said.

  He pulled her closer still, saying something in Swahili to an old man standing nearby. The old man laughed and went off into the darkness beneath the trees.

  “What did you say to him?” Arab murmured.

  He chuckled and kissed her ear. “It would only embarrass you if I told you,” he teased her. “Isn’t it enough that I prefer you to all this bevy of beauty?”

  She was glad of the darkness that covered her blushes. “Do we have to stay to the end?” she asked.

  His eyes were dark pools of black, but she knew that if she had been able to see them they would have been full of mocking amusement. “No,” he said. “We’ll see the comedy turn and then we’ll go.”

  The story was very simple, no more than a young wife of an old man who took a lover and came to regret her infidelity. But the acting was exuberant, especially from the young man who took the part of the lover, who seduced the young bride with love and with charm. Lucien took a tighter hold of Arab and she turned her face up to his, knowing that he was wanting to kiss her. She put her hand up under his jacket, delighting in the hard feel of his back. When the kiss came to an end, she was shaking.

  “Come on,” he said. “We’re going now!”

  She didn’t dare argue with him. She, too, was beginning to hope that her parents came soon, before she cast all discretion to the wind and gave herself up completely to Lucien’s lovemaking.

  “How long is Ruth staying?” she asked, to give herself something else to think about.

  “I think she’d better stay until we’re properly wed,” he answered, unconsciously echoing her own thoughts. He lifted her into his arms, sending her crutches crashing to the ground. “Come on, my love,” he said. “We’re going home!”

  Arab wouldn’t let him help her out of the car. She balanced the crutches that someone had retrieved for her at the village, and swung herself along between them, knowing that if she allowed him to kiss her again she wouldn’t be able to stop. It was like trying to force the water back up a waterfall, such was the strength of her feeling for him.

  “You won’t ever leave me behind when you go off, will you?” she said in the doorway, suddenly anxious.

  “Not if I can help it! Who would type my notes?”

  “Because I don’t think I could bear it!” Arab gulped Lucien came into the light.

  “Do you think I could?” he demanded. He smiled sweetly at her. “That reminds me that I have a present for you, though. We’ll have to have a home somewhere and I thought it might as well be here.” He put a hand in his breast pocket and drew out an official-looking document, looking ashamed of himself and as if he were afraid she was going to reject his gift. “I’ve bought you this house as a wedding present,” he said.

  She pushed the crutches away from her and fell into his arms. “Were you so sure of me?” she asked softly.

  “I thought the house might help my case along,” he answered “Oh, darling, I wanted you so badly!”

  “And I you!” she whispered back, and kissed him eagerly on the lips.

  A sound on the stairs made them turn their heads towards the light of the hall. Hilary came bounding down the stairs, her dressing gown trailing behind her.

  “Did you ask her? Did you?” She rushed across the hall to Arab. “Are you going to marry him?”

  Arab coloured finely. “Yes, I am,” she said happily.

  Hilary hugged her. “I hope you’re grateful,” she said to her uncle. “Arab is my friend because I found her!”

  Lucien smiled at her, taking the child’s hand in his. “I’m very grateful,” he told
her. He looked up and saw his sister coming down the stairs too. “I’m grateful to your mother too,” he went on. “But I’d be more grateful still if you’d all go back to bed!”

  His womenfolk faced him in a united group of three. “Yes, Lucien,” they said meekly, and they went up the stairs together, with Arab only a little slower than the other two.