Love This Stranger

by Rosalind Brett

  “He came about half an hour ago.” He paused, trying to control himself. “I’m fired, shown the gate. No explanation. Merely a month’s salary and orders to clear off the Zinto estate today. Tess ... darling.” His voice broke, and somehow her hands locked round him, hurt and anger so strong within her that she could not think. But in a little while the desperate contraction of his arms about her slackened.

  “I feel better now,” he muttered, his lips to her hair. “It wasn’t being told to go that mattered — only the terrible suspicion that you’d agreed on it together. Lately, I’ve noticed that you and he ... well —”

  “I’ll speak to him,” she cut in abruptly, “but I doubt if he’ll climb down. You’d better take a room at the hotel in Parsburg, Martin, and I promise I’ll come and see you tomorrow.”

  “Oh, my dear,” came his anguished undertone, “I love you.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  AFTER lunch Tess put on a pink-and-white-striped dress and went up to the farmhouse. She walked, because exercise in the heat of the day had the benefit of drugging the senses, and to feel too much in the coming interview with Dave might have a fatal effect upon its outcome.

  He was on the veranda, lounging in a long chair and browsing over market bulletins. In a white shirt and khaki shorts, a cigarette between his lips and the remains of a glass of beer on the table, he looked so indolently at ease that she was able to harden against him.

  “Hello,” he said, and from the reserve in his manner she detected that he must have been half-expecting her. “You look very charming. I didn’t hear the jeep.”

  “I walked.”

  “That was unwise, surely?”

  He got up and pushed forward a chair, but she turned aside to sit on the veranda wall. He bent to kiss her, and made no comment when she kept her mouth averted from him, but straightened again, leaning back against a pillar to watch her.

  “Very well, Tess. Let’s have it. I’m inhuman, a heartless monster, and all the rest. Did he weep on your shoulder?”

  After a moment she said, “What made you do it, without warning, or a word to me?”

  “My nature, I guess. Where’s the sense in arguing a case of that sort? He had to go.”

  “Like that?”

  “As far as I’m concerned, yes. After yesterday I had no alternative.”

  This was perilous ground, but there could be no side-stepping it.

  “Aren’t you making Martin just a wee bit too important?”

  “No,” he said bluntly, “but you are. I was willing for him to continue as temporary manager so long as he remained just a hanger-on. But yesterday he came between us. You can’t deny it, Tess,” as she made to protest. “Privately, you had built up a delightful situation in which I was your lover and Cramer your intellectual soul-mate. The marriage idea jarred you back to reality.”

  “You seem to forget that you hadn’t given me the smallest reason to suspect that you wished for marriage.”

  “We’ve been through that.” Intolerance crisped his tones. “I thought this over deeply last night, and I could see no other way out. It was obvious, from the minute I mentioned Lokola, that to go away would upset the little world you’d constructed. You saw us going on as we were for months, a tidy triangle. God knows what led you to believe I’d stand for it.”

  “I suppose I credited you with humanity and one or two other virtues. Martin could never threaten what exists between you and me.”

  “No? How would you feel if I had some clinging vine of a woman in the background? Incredible though it may sound, I have my share of imagination, and I don’t have to use much of it to know that Cramer touches you when he gets the chance, and works on your sympathies when he doesn’t. Tell me something,” he raised a foot to the wall and leaned towards her, “I wasn’t the only one who did a lot of thinking last night, was I? You decided to ask me for time, so that the break with Cramer could be long-drawn and gentle. Am I right?”

  “Whatever I say you’ll twist, because there’s something in you that won’t allow you to see good in Martin. Please don’t let’s quarrel about this, Dave.”

  “My dear girl, for my part the matter’s as good as closed. But I do mean to have your word that you’ll never see that fellow again.”

  She pulled in her lip to moisten it; her glance did not waver from the green spread of the mango tree in the garden. Quietly she said: “If you love me, Dave, you won’t demand the impossible. It may be all for the best that you’ve taken the first drastic step, but give him time to live down the unhappiness by stages. We all have something we can’t take; even you, perhaps.”

  “I have — and this is it. You do mean to see him?” She made no answer. He thrust back against the post, swinging down his foot with a small thud on the stone floor.

  “If that’s the way you feel about it,” he flung at her, “you can have him. Marry him, but don’t expect me to be merciful to either of you.” He was suddenly furious. “What the hell d’you suppose I’m made of!”

  “I don’t know.” She swallowed, hoping to strengthen her voice. “I’m beginning to realize that I’ve never understood you.” She paused, and looked down at her hands upon the striped silk of her lap. “Since my father died you’ve been exceedingly generous. You’ve arranged with the lawyer that the proceeds of the sale of the house, store and ground shall be paid to the Bentley account, and refused to accept rent though I’ve been banking the takings. You gave me the chestnut mare...”

  “I shouldn’t concoct any more, if I were you,” he said, dangerously deliberate.

  Her head rose. “You’re the last person to evade facts. I’m trying to make you visualize how I was bound to regard our relationship, till you dropped the marriage bombshell.”

  “Let up, will you!”

  “I know you love me,” she said, as if he had not spoken, “but you’ve been in love before — without getting married. I’m not a complete fool, Dave. I’m as well aware as you are that marriage was no part of your plan when you gave me the jade and diamond ring...”

  He blazed. His hand came up in a vicious smack at her cheek. She went very white, except where his mark began to print itself in red, and slowly got to her feet.

  His nostrils were pinched, his lips drawn back upon closed teeth. “You’d better go before I really hurt you.”

  But it was he who went first, striding into the house and down the corridor. She heard the crack of a door, followed by a silence like the hush of death.

  A quarter of an hour later she entered her own house. Katie had washed up and left the place clean and smelling of hard soap. In her room, Tess found her slacks and shirt over the back of a chair, as she had thrown them about an hour ago, and on the old dressing-table was Ned’s black stud box, in which she kept the jade ring. She tore off the plastic lid and looked in at the ring. The lid snapped in her grasp, blood spurted on the pads of two fingers and she slid box and pieces back on to the dressing-table.

  The room swayed. Her body was a shell of sick sensations, but her brain repeated the scene with Dave: his arrogance giving way to anger, and the anger to something white-hot and ungovernable.

  It wasn’t over, of course. Tonight he would come down as he always did, and she would go more than half-way to meet his apology. He’d hate himself, and she would tell him how little anything mattered beside the fact of their need for each other. They would be married next week and leave for Lokola. Martin could do what he liked — shoot himself or go native; she would promise Dave never to go near him again.

  Loneliness throbbed in her like an acute ache; loneliness and heart-wrenching worry. After a while she had a bath and went to bed. Towards morning she fell into a doze, from which an astonished Katie roused her. Tess sent her away and tried to climb back over the ridge into unconsciousness, but recollection, as inexorable as the sun, flooded over her.

  When she had dressed there was nothing to do. She thought of Martin as of some remote acquaintance whom she might never see ag
ain. She sat on the step, in order to glimpse the sedan the moment it appeared in the lane. Would Dave stop, or merely wave and drive on? She couldn’t go on suffering like this.

  By the afternoon, when it became almost certain that he would not go to town, Tess had decided to buy something to read. She drove slowly into town. But it was impossible to browse in a bookshop empty of other customers, so she chose a novel and some magazines and came out on to the beaten earth sidewalk.

  Slackly, she strolled over to the main entrance of the hotel and had a message sent up to Martin’s room. He came down at once and crossed to where she sat, in a corner of the main lounge.

  “I’m so glad you managed it,” he said. “This has been one of the longest days of my life.”

  “And mine.” She took a cigarette from his packet and steadied it at his match. “Been working?”

  “Trying to.” He shifted his seat. “I’ll never produce anything in this place. You saw Paterson?”

  “Yes. It was no good.”

  As she inhaled, Martin noticed the nerve twitching in her cheek.

  “Was he unpleasant?”

  “Not ... particularly.”

  “You look rather down, Tess.”

  “I am, a bit. I woke with a head this morning and it hasn’t cleared yet.”

  “Through me? Oh, Tess.”

  His devotion and tenderness grated. She could not bear to look at his fine-drawn features, the mouth to which pain came too easily. She took one more pull at the cigarette and squashed it out in a misshapen brass ash-tray strapped to the arm of her chair.

  “I can’t stay, Martin, and I may not come in again this week.”

  “May I come to your house?”

  “Not yet. I’ll get in touch with you.”

  He walked out with her and up to the bookshop where the jeep was parked. When she was sitting at the wheel he spoke through the window.

  “Tess, I’ve been making enquiries. There’s a small farm for sale the other side of town. I could buy it for a down payment of six hundred.”

  “Why don’t you?” she said dully.

  “I can’t till you’ve been over it.”

  Her eyes filmed. She switched on the ignition and thumbed the starter. “I’m not choosing your future home for you, Martin. You must please yourself. Good-bye.”

  As she moved off his face was reflected-in the square mirror attached to the windscreen; pale and tight with torment of his own making. How had she come to be mixed up with such a man?

  But as Parsburg receded, so did Martin. Suppose Dave stayed away again this evening? Suppose he was waiting for a move from her? But that was not his way. Unwittingly, she had humiliated him, and he was making her pay for it. If she crawled to him — and every sinew shrank from such a course — nothing would ever again be clear between them. She had to sit back till the parting began to punish him, but be ready with a smile and arms wide, for his return.

  It took her fully thirty seconds to realize that the oncoming car in the distance was Dave’s. In a reflex action her foot switched to the brake, and her breathing accelerated. The smile had already begun on her lips and her eyes were misting with the peculiar delight of this moment.

  Everyone knew everyone else on this road, and he couldn’t help but recognize the jeep. He was approaching fast, but it would be like him to jerk to a sudden halt, as if he had stopped against his saner judgment. He was very near. She pressed the brake the whole way ... and then it was over. A speeding black shape with Dave staring ahead as if the road was clear, and his trail of dust sweeping across the veld with the wind.

  In a mental paralysis Tess gazed at the thinning dust. Her knuckles gleamed white on the wheel.

  Presently, from a long way off she heard her own voice: “Oh, God. Where do I go from here?”

  During the next few days Tess felt herself sinking into a lethargy which was hardly more tolerable than suffering; she had never reacted spontaneously to negative conditions. Stagnation was loathsome and to be avoided at all costs. Yet her situation was ideal for it.

  Isolated at the house, she spoke to no one but Katie or August. Another prospective buyer did inspect the rooms, but he was dealing with the attorney and his interest in Tess ceased when she retreated behind a journal and ignored him. After he had gone she wished she had accepted the invitation in his eyes and used him as a companion for a few hours. His masculine aroma had awakened a bitter nostalgia for Dave’s smoky fragrance, and left her shivering with pain till the blankness enwrapped her once more.

  She became accustomed to hearing the sedan slow down to turn the corner, and she knew, without watching, that Dave never moved his head as he sped past. This thing would be so much easier to bear if their houses were far apart.

  Through Katie, who got it from her sons, Tess heard that an offer had been made for the store and negotiations started. “Baas Paterson” had given orders for a split-pole fence to be erected on three sides of the plot, cutting it off entirely from the citrus farm, and one of the stipulations in the sale provided for the complete repainting of the buildings, and cleaning up of the lawns and yard.

  Martin wrote twice, begging to be allowed to come over, and to the second letter she briefly replied that she would drop in at the hotel one day soon.

  A fortnight dragged by. Then one morning she went to the store for some cotton. Mrs. Marais was there, supporting her large bosom on the counter and laboriously scribbling her requirements on the notepad.

  Mrs. Marais tapped her crooked white teeth with the pencil. “I think that is all, Jacob. You will send them before midday?” She threw a short-sighted glance over her shoulder. “Good morning, Tess. We don’t often see you now.”

  Tess murmured something.

  “And how is the young man — Mr. Cramer?”

  “Quite well. He’s living in Parsburg.”

  “We used to joke about him, Piet and I. He was a good boy, jealous of you with the baas.”

  Tess forced a smile. “Silly of him.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.” Mrs. Marais’ mouth quirked archly. “We thought he had good reason. The baas has been kind to you since you heard the bad news about your father. He’s a generous man — to all of us.”

  “Has he raised Piet’s wages?”

  “A little, but the bonus was the welcome surprise. And he said that if the farm is in good shape when he comes back there will be another bonus. Think of that!”

  With fingers gripped in upon her palms, Tess echoed: “When he comes back? So he’s going to Lokola, after all?”

  “By now he’s half-way there. He left the day before yesterday. Surely he said good-bye to you as he passed?”

  “No. No, he didn’t.” Her teeth were tight with the effort of control. “Possibly I was out. How long will he be gone?”

  “Eight or ten weeks. He’s locked up the house and handed the key to Mr. Arnold.”

  Somehow, Tess dragged herself free and got back to her dining-room. Shakily, she lit a cigarette and flicked the match out of the window. This would pass — it must. It was the suddenness that hurt like a knife twisted in her heart. Of course he had gone to Lokola, and it was her own fault that she hadn’t gone with him. She should have submerged her pride; there were ways a woman could do it without too much loss of face. In any case, pride was a fraud when it parted two people who were in love with each other.

  Her thoughts paused, hollowly. Was Dave in love with her? Could a man wound so cruelly a woman he loved? He had packed up and gone, put three or four thousand miles between them without so much as a gesture of farewell. What did he intend her to learn from that? That he would have no difficulty in getting along without her, that the marriage proposal had been solely for her benefit and relinquished by him with relief? She wouldn’t believe it.

  Yet there were other, more deadly implications. In a couple of months the store would belong to someone else and Tess would be forced to leave Zinto. He would return to find her removed to Parsburg, and well out of
the path of temptation.

  Eight or ten weeks and no hope of a letter from him. She might write to him: “I love you, Dave. Please send word that you forgive me.” But what good would it do? Even by air the postal delays to the tropics were enormous. A letter might not reach him for a fortnight, and if he replied by return, which was problematical, a month would pass before she could hear from him. A month of anguished hope and despair. Besides, his departure had been so deliberate, so coldly brutal. She could imagine him tearing the letter across and hating her for reminding him of the thing he had determined to forget.

  Perhaps putting her from his mind would prove impossible; need of her might bring him home sooner ... But no, not Dave. Into her mad refusal to hurt Martin he had read belittlement of himself, and humiliation happened to be a quality he could not live with. If only he’d given her the chance to climb down. What did she care about Martin? True, there had been a time, not so long ago, when he had stirred in her a protective pity, but that was before he threatened the relationship between Dave and herself. Now, she felt nothing for him but a deadly distaste. She never wanted to see him again.

  Yet it was impossible to wish that Dave had never entered her life. Back in the house she recalled ecstasies in his arms, and trembled with the terrible longing to feel him close again. There was no pain so grinding as this; no loss so shattering as that which comes precipitately upon the awakening and fulfilment of love. Tess made some coffee and drank it with a splash of brandy. She lit another cigarette and discarded it half-way through. Her head was floating with hunger and as the sun waned she felt cold and bloodless. She paced the veranda, walked round the paths between sere grasses, and came back to find Martin poking his head into the hall. At her step he turned.

  “Tess!” he exclaimed. And then, “Oh, Tess darling,” in a tender, suffering voice that touched her nerves with fire.

  “What do you want?”

  He stared, unbelieving. “My dear, what is it? You’re unwell ... or did I frighten you?”