“Got any slacks?”
“She can wear my gray ones,” said Lucille. “They’re on the tight side for me.”
“All right. Don’t be long,” said Colin.
Fifteen minutes later Melanie, in the gray slacks and a scarlet shirt, was beside him in the small car and waving to Henry and Lucille as it moved off. Her honey-pale hair lifted in the breeze and the green was very apparent in her eyes as she turned her head to smile at him.
“You Jamesons don’t let a catastrophe get you down, do you?”
“We’ve experienced this kind of thing too often, and become accustomed to meeting material setbacks. We’re not quite so stalwart in face of the other kind, though.”
“The other kind?” she echoed.
“Illness, or loss of relatives,” he said. “While Lucille was ill some years ago you couldn’t get near Henry.” He gave that brief, self-deprecatory laugh. “I used to get pretty poisonous over it myself.”
“She is a lovely person,” Melanie agreed quietly.
He kept his glance on the road ahead. “Henry was in love with her for years before they married. At first he stupidly thought her too good for him, and then she stupidly insisted that an ailing woman wouldn’t make a planter’s wife.”
“She wasn’t so stupid. Most women would think the same.”
“Henry adored her just as she was. He loves her differently now that she’s well and strong, but not more deeply.”
There was a silence. On either side the flattened cane was strewn with branches and other debris. The sky was benign, as if disclaiming all connection with the elements that had wrought havoc in this planters’ paradise. A flock of yellowbilled egrets circled above, but if they were searching for cattle upon which to settle in an endeavor to sate a hunger for ticks, they were doomed to failure. There were no pastures on Mindoa, few cows except the sacred herd in the grounds of the Tiran Palace, and there the little boys scared off the tick birds.
“You don’t believe it’s possible to fall out of love, do you?” she queried softly.
“No,” he said with unwonted abruptness, and on a note of finality, “if you love someone they become part of you, even though they may never know it.”
Very soon after that they pulled up in front of his house and Melanie went up the steps into his disorderly living room. The chairs and table had been pushed against the inner wall and the rolled rugs stood in a corner. The brickwork of the long outer wall was entirely exposed, and the floor below it was spattered with cement and chips of brick.
“It’s just on twelve,” he said. “The servant has got so used to my being away on the weekend that he’s cleared off to his family in town. There are some tinned mutton and fresh vegetables. Think they’ll do?”
“Splendidly. Do you want to eat soon?”
“An early lunch would be a good idea. While you’re on that I’ll clean up the floor and get all the stuff ready for a quick start as soon as we’ve eaten.”
Melanie enjoyed preparing the meal. She cooked spinach and French beans, crisped some slices of potato and heated up the tin of meat, heaped a dish with bananas, mangos and tangerines. They ate in the living room. Colin had moved the table near to the open doorway and placed Melanie’s chair so that she sat with her back to the damaged wall. The view could offer nothing breathtaking, for Colin had no time for flowers and shapely shrubs, but the grass was well kept and had recently been raked clean, and the terraced acres of sugar were a vivid and tender green.
“When I get around to building a house for myself,” commented Colin, “I’ll design the walls to slope out to the ground on two sides. Vertical walls present a challenge to high winds. Does it sound queer?”
“I’ve seen cottages built that way in England. They were attractive. Where will you have your plantation?”
“I’ve put in an offer for some land on the other side of Carimari. When I’m ready, Henry will nurse along seedlings for me—I shall grow coffee and tobacco, as he does. The prices keep at a good level.”
He continued the topic while they had a cigarette, and then helped her to carry the plates and glasses into the kitchen. As she washed up Melanie thought how singularly without conceit he was, and what a grand husband he would make; the steady, affectionate type that most women hope their husbands will develop into after the first flush of passion. Not that she herself could marry a man of Colin Jameson’s undeviating temperament—she was spoiled for that, spoiled for all other men.
When she reentered the living room Colin was on a stepladder smoothing a pale gray cement over the bricks. “Let me do some,” she begged.
“I’d rather you sat down and talked to me.”
“I can talk just the same if I’m helping. May I start at the bottom and work toward you?”
“Try it out, then. It’ll make your arm ache.”
It did, but gossip was an invaluable aid. The sun was westering before the wall was quite covered. Tired, Melanie rested on the edge of the table and surveyed their achievement.
“Won’t it be porous?” she inquired.
“I’m afraid so. If it ever dries out I’ll paint it cream to match the rest. Before then, I daresay it will grow a nice pattern of fungus.” He shrugged. “Come on. I’ll bring you a can of water to the bathroom.”
The sun vanished and he lighted the lamp. They had tea and biscuits in that room smelling of cold wet cement. They seemed to have talked threadbare every subject of mutual interest, and a silence began to stretch between them. He tried to break it down by suggesting dinner at the Miramar but it was too tangible to be so simply destroyed.
“I’d have to go and change,” Melanie answered, “and once we’re there we may as well have dinner with Lucille and Henry.”
He accepted her decision, and presently he set a match to the hurricane lamp that hung in the veranda, and turned out the table lamp. They went to the car and, in the same strained wordlessness, wound out to the road, away from Carimari.
Melanie was bewildered. Colin had been happy enough all the afternoon telling of his boyhood on the island and questioning her about the school in which she had learned and worked. They had grown weary, though she might have shown it the more plainly because she was still a little weak from enteritis. Perhaps he was annoyed with himself for permitting her to become exhausted. But he would not go so quiet with self-reproach. No, there was something that, for him at any rate, had a somber significance.
As they approached Henry’s plantation he said in a studiously normal tone, “Sorry to have worn you out, Melanie, but it’s been a good day, hasn’t it?”
She smiled at him. “I always get a kick out of doing household repairs, and you’re a treat to work with. You don’t grouse.” At the house she changed, and after dinner she played cards with the others. It was much later, rousing from a dream in the middle of the night, that Melanie became conscious of a disquieting and unprecedented fact. During the whole day Colin had not once mentioned Stephen.
THE NEXT MAIL brought the awaited letter from the London lawyer. He had sympathy for her plight but could not see his way to sending her more than the enclosed check for fifty pounds. He wished to remind her that the final payment of fifty pounds would not be made till her twenty-first birthday and he ventured to suggest that she come at once to England where there were plenty of ways in which a young, healthy woman could earn her living.
“The old man’s stiff,” laughed Lucille. “No doubt the poor thing has never had an adventure in his life. He’d be angry to know that you don’t need the money now.”
“It will nearly pay my fare home, anyway,” said Melanie.
“You mean to Alexandria. I wonder if you’ll get married there?”
“No. I’ve a feeling I won’t be getting married for a long, long time.”
“Come, come,” Lucille rallied her. “Just because you haven’t had a second letter from Stephen! Our mail is mostly weeks old and quite often it miscarries. He’s secreted away in the wilderness a
nd has to rely on bearers. Melanie,” she sounded anxious, “you’re writing to him regularly just the same, aren’t you? He needs to hear from you even more than you need to hear from him.”
Melanie’s smile was brittle. “You don’t know Stephen. When he’s working—and at most other times as well—he’s completely self-sufficient.” She paused. “I’ll acknowledge this check, and when Henry drives into town I’ll go with him and do some shopping.”
She escaped from Lucille and wrote her letter. She was tempted to write a note to Stephen; in fact, a few words did appear upon the blank sheet of paper in front of her. “Dear Stephen, I thought you might like to know that I attended the opening of the Indian Clinic—” Utterly trite and obvious. You couldn’t fool Stephen. She could see the curl of his lip as he read such a patent plea, the twitch of the muscle in his cheek as he dragged on his cigarette to brighten the tip, the careless smile with which he would kindle the corner of the notepaper and watch it flame into a twisted, blackened scrap. Impossible to write to him a second time; he knew well enough where she was.
Right after tea that day she accompanied Henry into Port Fernando. He had to make several calls, so they parted, to meet again at five-thirty.
Melanie bought several items for Lucille at the emporium and, on the strength of the check, made herself a gift of two lengths of dress material. With her purchases in one of the string bags that the shop bought by the dozen from the old Indian who made them, she idled along the main street, sparing a glance for the hotel in passing. How remote were the days when she had sat sewing on the second balcony from the end!
In the Marine Drive she slowed, and at the entrance to the government buildings she halted. Well, why not? If the colonel was there an offhand inquiry could do no harm. As he hesitated a white-haired Indian half closed the iron gate. “Colonel Davidson?” she said to him hastily.
“He is coming now, memsahib.”
She moved to the shade of the huge-girthed date palm, could not decide whether to hasten away or stay; The colonel appeared, spoke to the gatekeeper and turned toward her. “Good afternoon, Melanie. Why didn’t you come in?”
“I happened to be passing as the offices were about to close.”
She made the conventional remarks, asked after Mrs. Davidson and agreed with him that the cyclone had been a “snorter.” He, in his capacity of welfare officer, had had the task of finding shelter and food for the homeless.
“It was lucky the clinic had got into its stride,” he said. “That minimized the suffering. I told Stephen about it in a letter—thought it would be more palatable to him than ordinary thanks.”
She had known she had only to let the colonel talk for Stephen’s name to crop up. Swiftly, before her courage could ebb, she asked. “Have you heard from him lately?”
“Not a word, but I haven’t expected to,” he said heartily. “When Stephen doesn’t write it’s merely an indication that he has nothing to say. Where you’re concerned, my dear, it’s another matter!” he ended archly.
He insisted on driving her to the corner of the main street, where Henry’s car was parked, and bade her a courtly goodbye. Melanie slipped into the two-seater and lifted a hand to her throbbing temple. “When Stephen doesn’t write it’s merely an indication that he has nothing to, say.” It was as sharp and to the point as a statement from Stephen himself.
Late that night she started a new habit. In pajamas and dressing gown she put in three hours at the writing table and augmented the day’s output by six pages. Her watch said one forty-five when she got into bed.
Weeks traveled by. Now that Melanie had reached the English portion of the de Vaux chronicles, she was able to calculate the day they would be completed. Stress of one sort and another had dulled her enthusiasm for historical anecdote and amorous peccadilloes, but it had not lessened the care with which she copied the stories and checked them over with Lucille.
The Jamesons, all three of them, were worried about her thinness and Stephen’s silence. But for the risk of hurting Melanie even more, Henry would have got in touch with Alexandria.
“These Pagets,” he fumed to his wife. “Why the deuce do they fall for the heartless sort! John had the hell of a love life, and now Melanie is going the same way.”
“I never met Elfrida, but I believe I’d have hated her,” said Lucille slowly. “I liked Stephen, though—and he was certainly fond of Melanie.” Though not fond enough, said her expression.
Discussions were fruitless. No amount of argument could gloss the bald-truth that Stephen had not communicated with Melanie for nearly three months.
Great storms broke over Mindoa, became almost daily diversions till mid-season, after which they waned. Gales whipped again at-the island, but the cyclone season, too, was on its way out. Fishermen were enticed by an occasional smooth sea to try their luck on the reef, little boats bounced around the lagoon and the more optimistic among the Port Fernando residents stowed away their shutters.
On a morning in the middle of the week Melanie sat at the writing table. She blotted a sheet, set it aside and flexed her fingers. A pale blue bird sat on a branch outside the window, trilling on a note of aching sweetness to an invisible mate. Only a zephyr stirred the flowers and the trees whispered against a molten blue sky.
Melanie heard a car on the front driveway, and Colin’s voice. Unusual for him to show up mid-week, but she supposed he needed something from Henry. The servant would send him down to the sheds, or along to Lucille at the distillery. She picked up her pen, turned her head as a tap came at the door. “Who is it?”
“Colin. Will you come to the lounge?”
“Henry’s at the sheds.”
“It was you I came to see.”
She stood up with a sigh and opened the door. He was pale, his eyes unable to meet hers. Gently, he grasped her arm, drew her into the corridor.
“Come and sit down,” he pleaded.
She knew a sudden and sickening sensation. “What is it?”
“I’ve had a letter from Stephen,” he said.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SHE SAT VERY UPRIGHT and still in the tapestry chair he had pushed forward, and stared up at him with eyes that were huge in the pallor of her face.
“May I ... read the letter?”
He was more outwardly distressed than she. “I don’t think you should. He merely asked me to tell you that it’s all over between you and him. I’d have given all I own not to be the one to bring you such news!”
“You mustn’t be upset over it,” she said, dazedly aware that it was unnecessary to cause pain to anyone else. “I... I’ve known this all along, really.” She gave a tiny, broken laugh. “Stephen and I ... we’re not in the least suited to each other.”
“Don’t say that!”
“It’s true. You must have seen it.” She had to pause and swallow. “What was the date on the letter?”
“It was mailed three weeks ago.”
“In Alexandria?”
He nodded. “He says he’s finished with the jungle.”
“I suppose he’ll be ... going home.” Her teeth held on to her lower lip for a second, to still its trembling. Then, “Has he written to you before, Colin?”
“Not once, I swear it.”
“That’s all right.” Again the short, heart-wrenching laugh. “I only wondered why he should write to you now. It isn’t like him to go in for roundabout methods, and you and he weren’t so chummy that he’d get you to turn his girl down for him. I don’t suppose he made any of the hackneyed excuses like ... not being in love with me any longer? That wouldn’t be really comical.”
“Melanie, don’t,” he implored her. “I’d a thousand times rather you cried.”
“I don’t want to cry. There’s nothing to cry about. I’m only curious to know if he gave any reasons, and why he didn’t write directly to me.”
With a half-desperate gesture he dragged the letter from his pocket. “You’d better read it!” he said, and walked ac
ross the room.
The sight of Stephen’s handwriting steadied her, though a minute or two passed before she could separate the words and give them sense.
I have to admit, Colin, that I’ve used you rather badly. When, before I left Mindoa, I extracted a promise from you that you would do your best for Melanie, I was depending on the age-old trick working once more; I took advantage of your rather extreme code of honor and left you, so to speak, with your hands tied. There’s no one so trustworthy as he who has pledged himself to safeguard a woman for a friend. I’m sure you’ve kept rigidly to the letter of your promise, if not to the spirit.
This is to tell you that from now on you’re free of any obligation toward me. Melanie is too young for me. We couldn’t possibly make each other happy, and after all, that’s the first objective of marriage. I leave it to you to put it in the least disturbing way. Tell her that my job means too much to me—that there’s another woman—tell her anything that will convince her of my utter unworthiness. Somehow, I don’t think you will find it difficult—”
Melanie’s fortitude did not take her far beyond that. The letter fluttered to the floor and her hands tightened one over the other in her lap.
“Colin,” she said on a dry, quiet note, “did he ask you to ... take care of me?’
He swung around from the window, almost angrily. “Yes, he did. If I hadn’t been slightly in awe of him I’d have demanded why he wouldn’t take you with him. But Stephen had a way of squashing criticism before it could be voiced. His arrogance made everyone else believe he was right. He’s a selfish cad!”
“He’s just ... Stephen.” She was standing, and adding in the same toneless voice, “It was good of you to come, Colin. Don’t be sorry for me. This isn’t tragic news, only a confirmation of something I knew already. But if you don’t mind, we’ll keep it from Lucille and Henry.”
“Of course,” he said a trifle hoarsely.
“Thank you.” She contrived a ghostly smile and went back to her room.
For a few days she wondered how other women bore such blows. Both body and spirit were laden and a definite physical pain was lodged in her heart. She worked tirelessly, yet scarcely understood what she wrote. She was never in bed for longer than three or four hours each night, and dawn found her on the beach, shedding her beach jacket, wading into the night-cooled sea and swimming into oblivion.
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