“He said that Ned collapsed with a heart attack and died almost at once. It happened a fortnight ago, a couple of days before he was supposed to sail.”
There was nothing Dave could say to lessen her hurt. He raked through her hair, pushing her head hard against his collar-bone, and felt a hot tear soak through his shirt to his skin.
“Where were you going?” he asked presently.
She tried to straighten. “I’ve just written to my brothers, but hadn’t any airmail stamps. I could have sent Jacob, but I thought the trip into Parsburg would give me something to do.”
“Quite right,” he agreed. “I’ll take you.”
As he freed her she turned away. “Sorry to have collapsed upon you like that. I’d have done the same with any white man who’d turned up just then.”
“That’s all right,” he said. “I won’t take advantage of it. Let’s get moving.”
They were some miles along the road when she thanked him. “I’ll have to do whatever you say about the store,” she added.
“Will your brothers be coming?”
“They can’t, very well. Gerald is on the verge of exams and Alan can’t afford the time away from his studies, either. I’ve told them in the letters that there’s nothing they can do.”
“Neither, of course, would admit responsibility for a younger sister.”
“They know I’m perfectly able to take care of myself.”
“They’ll also realize, in time, that you’re no longer running the store for their benefit.”
“Gerald will be passing into a hospital, but it will come hard on Alan. He’s the younger—only twenty-three.”
“Is that all?” with satire. “Poor Gerald may have to dig into his savings for his little brother. Was there a will?”
“Yes, it’s with the lawyer. We’re each to have a third.”
Dave was on the point of saying, “So your father did possess that much humanity,” but he changed it to: “Oh, well, they’ll have a few hundred each, anyway. The stock should fetch a bit.”
Tess didn’t enquire what he had in mind. Being with Dave drew her from under the pall of sadness but, as yet, kindled no fires. When he swept past the store and up the lane, she put no questions, though as he, helped her from the car outside his own house, she did demur in low tones.
“I can’t keep wasting your time like this.”
He smiled. “Am I being too kind? Makes you wish you’d treated me better, doesn’t it? Never mind. From now on, you can atone.”
“What about your work?”
“To hell with it. Any good on a horse?”
“I used to be — as a kid, but I can’t ride now.”
“Yes, you can. My chestnut will fit you. Come on, we’ll try her out.”
When he said good night to her late on the veranda of her house, he smiled down into her small, colourless face.
“You won’t start pitying yourself as soon as you’re alone, will you? These losses happen to everyone.”
She blinked treacherous moisture from her eyes. “You’re so different that I’m not sure what to say to you.”
“Not yet,” he said, “but the time will come.”
Her expression was startled. “You mean...”
“I mean,” he explained evenly, “that next time you start spitting at me I shall know exactly how to act. Now go to bed and sleep. I’ll come down in the morning.”
He came after breakfast next morning, let that critical gaze of his rove over her face and gave her chin a friendly tap. He decreed that the store remain closed till Thursday, when Martin could take over. Apparently he had plans for today; another ride — so she had better wear slacks; a swim, and this afternoon a canoe up the river.
Tess made no attempt to analyse his generosity. She acquiesced in everything he suggested and was even faintly pleased when he complimented her swimming.
When the sun had gone they sat on the veranda and listened to the crickets chirring their love-songs and the palms gossiping over the day’s happenings.
Dave cut short a tranquil silence. “What time is Cramer supposed to get in tomorrow?”
“At Greenside? Around four. I shall leave at two-thirty to meet him.”
“You’re not going to meet him.”
“No?” There had been a note in his lazy voice which made her careful. “I promised.”
“That was last Friday. Your boy can take Cramer’s car to the junction and he can drive himself.”
Slowly she said: “I couldn’t do that to Martin. He’ll want to talk.”
“Well, he must wait. That young man is too full of himself. Some time soon he’ll have to leave Zinto and he may as well become accustomed to small hardships right away. You’re spoiling him for an independent life.”
“I don’t agree.” She spoke reasonably, from freshly acquired knowledge of how to deal with him. “During his six months here he’s gained poise and confidence.”
“And your sympathy. Before long, sympathy won’t be enough.”
“You haven’t cited a single reason why I shouldn’t keep my promise tomorrow. I’d hate to anger you over this, but I would feel wretched if I broke it.”
His answer was so long in coming that Tess wondered if already, in this new peace between them, a rift was starting. Then he swung one bare knee over the other, flipped open his silver case and selected a couple of cigarettes.
“Heaven forbid that I should enter into a tug-of-war with you over the store assistant,” he said. “Shall I light your cigarette or would you prefer to do it yourself?”
“You light it.”
He struck a match and illuminated an enigmatic grin on the well-cut lips. They smoked in quietude till the boy, Ephraim, began to clatter the cutlery for dinner.
“I’ve been thinking about the store,” he said, his manner altered. “We’ll put up the whole thing for sale — buildings and land. There’s no petrol pump or bottle store attached, but the turnover is plenty for a man with a small family. What is the stock worth?”
“It’s low at the moment. Between a thousand and fifteen hundred.”
“And say another two thousand for the goodwill. I suppose the house should stand up for another ten years — we’ll ask six thousand, and take five. You and your brothers, should net about seventeen hundred each.”
“Only the stock and goodwill are ours.”
“The land is worth nothing to me and I refuse to own such buildings. You’d like your brothers to do well out of the sale, wouldn’t you?”
“Not at your expense,” she said flatly. “You despise them.”
“If it weren’t for feeling that you deserve so much better from them I might appreciate their position. Let’s not argue about money, Tess. In the long run it means very little.”
True enough. She had lived happily without it. But it looked as if Dave were putting her dangerously in his debt.
“I’ll place the proposition with a couple of estate agents,” he said. “The sale will take time — perhaps three months. Marais may know someone who’ll take over temporarily, and I’ll mention a tempting salary as bait.”
Half of her gave in; it was so sweet to be bossed. The other half was fearful. How would she exist with nothing to do? And what of Martin? Was she, when the numbness of grief had faded, going to be able to bear Dave’s domination?
She quivered and withdrew her arm.
“Going off cold?” he queried. “Come in and have some whisky.”
Quickly, she got up and preceded him indoors. “I can’t take it like your tropical women. One whisky makes a soak out of me.”
“Never been tight?”
“No. Ought I?”
He shrugged, his eyes glinting at some private thought. “There’s a lot to be said for trying everything once. We’ll resume this discussion at a later date, my sweet. Tonight you’ll take a nip in a glass of very plain water.”
To Martin, at least, Ned Bentley’s death brought a temporary relief. The long jo
urney down from Johannesburg had been grilling in every sense of the word, and the salutary shock of meeting a Tess gone quiet and desolate was what he needed in order to view his own unhappiness in its true proportions. After all, he was very much alive and had twice the energy of a year ago. The specialist had stated that he had as much chance of living well into the mellow years as anyone else ... if he took care.
A little desperately, Martin had told the man that he wanted to get married. The sandy eyes had contracted behind the strong lenses, and the loose, elderly mouth had squared.
“I’m going to be frank with you, my boy. You’re doing fine, and you seem to have chosen a spot which suits you, physically and temperamentally. My advice is that you continue whatever you are doing now and forget about complications. I’m not forbidding you to have a woman now and then, but marriage at this stage of your cure is out of the question.”
Wretchedly, Martin had muttered, “She’s very understanding.”
“My dear chap,” the doctor had sternly asserted, “no healthy girl could stand wholesale frustration for the first two years of her marriage, and I doubt if you’d be strong-willed enough to impose it. It would be disastrous for both of you. If she cares enough, she’ll wait.”
So, when he had absorbed the news Tess had given him, and she asked for his, Martin merely answered, “The old boy was pleased with my condition — said I’ll live to be a hundred if I don’t overdo things.”
“That’s good. I knew you were better.”
“It looks as if I shall have to take up permanent quarters in the Zinto district.”
Tess was unable to offer the reassurance he desired. She kept silent, hardly aware that by doing so she gave her consent, should circumstances permit. She was too familiar with his character to believe that he had told her the whole, for where she was concerned Martin could not dissimulate.
He settled back into the store as if he had never been away, but as it became patent that Tess now confined her activities to office work he was strained and uneasy. After a few days he taxed her with it.
“Dave Paterson demanded it,” she told him simply. “While my father leased the store I could defy him, but for the present we have to do whatever he dictates.” She tried to prepare him, “Dave hates the store; he may try to cut it off from his property.”
“Would he consider us as tenants and potential buyers?” Painful colour crept up from his throat. “We might even buy at once, and apply for a mortgage bond. My writing would take care of repayments.”
“It’s sweet of you, Martin, but he seems to have other ideas. If controlling the shop on your own is too much for you—”
“Of course it isn’t. The boys do the donkey work.”
“Well, we must hope that he’ll' do nothing in a hurry. I’m no more anxious to leave Zinto than you are.”
This pleased Martin. He smiled at her gratefully, and the two lines which had etched themselves between his brows faded a little.
Emerging from her loss, Tess began to notice in him a fatalistic acceptance of his own limitations, though there were still moments when he grew hollow-eyed and pale with the intensity of his thoughts; moments when she was afraid to speak lest those thoughts be revealed. With returning zest came also a repugnance towards intimate discussion with Martin. She was no less fond of him, but a deeper, more desperate emotion was beginning to swathe her head and her heart.
Every couple of days Dave called to see her, timing his visit to coincide with morning coffee or afternoon tea. They talked of crops and cattle and neighbours, and she avoided the subject of Martin until the day when he told her that as Cramer seemed to be handling things satisfactorily he might as well stay in the job till the place was sold, and take a salary as manager. Tess was too thankful to probe the object behind the decision. She merely thanked him and made a light reference to the fact that between the store and his writing, Martin was putting in too many hours to have time for much else.
Since those two evenings just after the news of Ned’s death, Tess had not been to the farmhouse for dinner. She had played tennis there in the early evening and stayed for a sundowner, but each time she was driven home at seven. Then one day, about a month after Martin’s return, Dave invited her to dinner the following evening.
With faint emphasis he ended, “You haven’t made other arrangements?”
“You know I never go out!”
“Tomorrow is different, surely.”
“Oh!” Her blankness gave way to a half-smile. “Who told you it’s my birthday?”
“Mrs. Marais, a long time ago. Like lots of things about you, it registered in my memory, never to be forgotten.” His grin teased. “Twenty’s a great age, a whole decade removed from nineteen.”
“I shall only be a day older.”
“And a day nearer heaven,” he said mockingly. “It’s time you fell in love.”
She bent over the pouring of second cups of tea, and casually enquired, “How would you like to be my first affair?”
He laughed, and deliberately plopped a knob of sugar into the milk jug. “I should imagine an affair with you might be brief, tempestuous and somewhat shattering, but we’d both learn plenty. A year after it finished we’d still be getting our wind.”
“Sounds exciting,” she said regretfully, and slid his cup across the veranda table, “though it might spoil one for a normal existence. Perhaps I ought to start with someone less experienced and work up to the expert.”
He leaned back on two legs of his chair, his glance a pleasant taunt. “I rather think, Teresa, that nothing but the best will satisfy you. Let me know when your heart becomes unruly.”
She stirred her tea. “Will there be other guests tomorrow?”
“I’ll send a note to the Arnolds, if you like.”
“I’d rather not make a public occasion of it.”
“So would I,” he remarked non-committally, and ten minutes later he left her.
Martin, too, knew that next day was her birthday. He arrived early and gave her an enamel and ormolu powder compact which he had bought in Johannesburg for this purpose. He kissed her cheek and voiced the hope that he would be able to give her something more valuable and intimate next year.
Tess couldn’t have explained her reluctance to encounter him, but it stayed with her all day. By six it was dark, and she dressed by lamplight in a green tailored linen dress, and combed her lengthening curls into a bunch at the back of her head. When Dave came, she hurried down the path and met him in the gateway.
“Happy birthday, Teresa,” he said softly, and then, mockingly aware of her tenseness, “Had a scare?”
She shook her head. “Forget it.”
The short drive with Dave at her side did not dispel the strange upheaval in her veins, and her nerves still quivered when he was pouring drinks in the lounge, though by then she could smile and accept his good wishes as they sipped.
After a moment he took her glass and placed it on a low table beside his own. From his pocket he produced a small cubic case. He snapped it open and her heart gave a frightened leap. The ring was gold set with an exquisite oval of Chinese jade in a surround of small diamonds.
“Ever owned a dress-ring?” he asked offhandedly, and pushed it along the third finger of her right hand. “Looks nice.”
The hand trembled. “Dave...”
“Well?” He was smiling. “Don’t you like it?”
She pressed the ring to her flaming cheek. “I love it. I don’t know how to thank you.”
“It’s easy,” he murmured, his hands upon her shoulders, the grey eyes glittering.
But Tess wasn’t yet ready for his lips. Her arms curved about his neck and her face moved against his jacket. His grip of her tightened, hurting her chest and driving the air from her lungs. He forced her to raise her head and part her mouth to his long, bruising kiss.
As he released her the boy came in to announce that dinner was ready.
“Probably been watching us through
the crack of the door,” Dave said, not looking at her. He drained his sherry. “How’s your appetite, Teresa?”
“Hardly improved by ... that,” she managed. “You might have warned me.”
“Surely you expected a birthday kiss?”
Under her breath she said, “Is that what it was?” and she passed him to enter the dining-room.
She was glad when Dave suggested taking coffee on the veranda. Though the night was by no means cold, the air had sufficient freshness to clear her brain.
When he poured whisky she declined. “No more drink. I’m hot enough.” She sniffed. “Smells faintly acrid, like a storm.”
He came beside her. “Supposing one started now what would you do?”
“Let you take me home before the track flooded.”
“And if I refused?”
Tess smiled round at him. “I’d have to run all the way.” She turned back again. “Your orange trees are budding. I can smell them.”
“In a week or two they’ll be overpowering and I shall be sorry I chose to farm citrus.”
There was a silence. Then, swiftly, she twisted and moved a pace or two away from him.
“I’d better go home, Dave.”
“It’s only ten.”
“Still — I ought to go.”
“Wouldn’t you rather have a swim?”
Startled, she met the provoking glint in his glance. Her own wide eyes were full of the lamplight and her skin glowed. “A swim? I’ve never bathed at night. But I haven’t a swimsuit.”
“You left yours here this morning. I found it when I took a dip before lunch and hung the pieces on a bush. The boy will have put it in the kitchen.”
“I’ll find it.”
“Go into the kitchen and change,” he called after her. “I’ll bring you a robe.”
The kitchen was as spruce as only a well-trained native could make it, and her swim-suit, neatly ironed and folded, lay ostentatiously on the seat of a white-enamelled chair. Tess dragged on the briefs and performed the usual contortion to tie the strings of the brassiere. Odd, the indecency of bathing wear within walls. Dave ought to have brought the robe along at once and dropped it outside the door.
Love This Stranger Page 6
