The Spotted Plume

by Yvonne Whittal

  Jennifer went to bed that night, but she could not sleep. It was close to midnight when she heard Hunter's heavy footsteps in the passage. He often worked long hours at night in his study, and she could not recall how many nights she had lain awake, waiting to hear his footsteps before she finally went to sleep, but on this occasion it had the opposite effect on her. She could still hear his deep, harsh voice demanding her dismissal, and it hurt like the very devil.

  Hunter did not join Jennifer and his mother for breakfast the following morning, and while a part of her regretted this, there was another part of her which said that it was for the best. Agnes told them that Hunter had had an early breakfast, and that he had left a message that he would not be back before lunch that day. Everything was, in fact, working out just the way Jennifer had wanted it, but when breakfast was finally over it took a great deal of courage to broach the subject which had been preying on her mind most of the night.

  'Mrs Maynard,' Jennifer began, her voice hesitant at first, but gaining momentum as she went on, 'I'd like your permission to leave Vogelsvlei.'

  The grey eyes that met Jennifer's were startled and anxious. 'You're not thinking of returning to Cape Town already, are you?'

  'I have to think of it at some time, or another, and what better time than this?' Jennifer said, forcing a smile to her unwilling lips.

  'I wish you would consider staying on another week or two.'

  Jennifer shook her head. 'You longer need me, Mrs Maynard.'

  'I meant you to stay on as my guest, and not in your nursing capacity,' Alice elaborated hopefully, but Jennifer declined adamantly and tactfully.

  'It's kind of you to want me to stay longer, but I'm afraid I can't.'

  A silence settled between them; a silence during which they were both occupied with their own unhappy thoughts, and Jennifer was on the point of repeating her request when Alice Maynard asked quietly:

  'When did you want to leave?'

  'This morning,' Jennifer replied firmly. 'Immediately, if it wouldn't inconvenience you.'

  A strained silence prevailed once more, then the older woman smiled sadly. 'You sound as if you're in a hurry to be rid of me.'

  'It's not that at all, Mrs Maynard, and you know it,' Jennifer assured her hastily, swallowing down the painful lump which had risen in her throat. 'I've been happy here working for you, and with you, but I'm anxious to get back to my old job.'

  Grey eyes met Jennifer's with a searching intensity. 'Did we make your stay here a pleasant one?'

  'You were very kind to me, Mrs Maynard.'

  'And Hunter?'

  Jennifer hesitated, but only briefly. 'Hunter never wanted me here in the first place, and I have no doubt he'll be relieved when I've left the farm.'

  'Jennifer, my dear, I might as well be frank with you,' Alice sighed unhappily after a brief pause. 'I had such wonderful hopes that my son would see his future in you.'

  Jennifer's eyes clouded with pain, and she lowered her glance hastily to the untouched cup of coffee on the table in front of her. 'I don't know what to say.'

  'Have I embarrassed you?'

  'A little,' Jennifer admitted, conscious of a warmth stealing into her pale cheeks. 'But only because it's so totally out of the question.'

  'So it seems,' Alice sighed again. 'When I think of all the trouble I went to I could weep. I encouraged you to go out with Stanley and Dr Hoffman for the simple reason that I hoped it would make Hunter sit up and take notice. In Port Elizabeth I left the two of you alone in the hope that something would come of it, but instead he picked up that Louella woman.' That gentle face was tight-lipped with anger now. 'Quite honestly, Jennifer, if he weren't so big, I would have taken him and shaken him!'

  Jennifer lowered her glance hastily once more and toyed with the teaspoon in her saucer. 'There could never be anything between Hunter and myself, Mrs Maynard.'

  'I would have said you were ideal for him,' Alice insisted, and Jennifer had to blink away the moisture in her eyes.

  'You were mistaken.'

  An awkward silence settled between them, then the older woman placed her hand gently on Jennifer's arm. 'I hope my confession hasn't embarrassed you too much.'

  There were tears in Jennifer's eyes now as she raised her glance. 'It makes me happy to know that you thought so much of me.'

  'I've grown very fond of you, my dear.' Her fingers tightened briefly on Jennifer's arm. 'I'm going to miss you dreadfully.'

  'I'm going to miss you, too,' Jennifer confessed, swallowing convulsively and blinking away the tears in her eyes.

  Alice released Jennifer's arm and reached for the bell. 'I'll send Agnes with a message to Hunter,'

  'No, don't do that!' Jennifer begged hastily. 'I'd rather he didn't know that I'm leaving.'

  Alice eyed her curiously, but with a hint of astonishment lurking in her grey glance. 'Do you mean that you want to leave without seeing him?'

  'I would prefer it that way.'

  'May I ask why?'

  Jennifer shifted uncomfortably in her chair beneath the older woman's direct gaze. This was no time to be evasive, she realised, so she decided on the truth. 'Hunter has never made a secret of the fact that he despises me. He never wanted me here in the first place, and leaving here is going to be difficult enough without having his insults ringing in my ears.'

  'Perhaps you're right,' Alice admitted at length, then a strange look flashed across her face. 'I can't wait to see his face, though, when he finds out that you're gone.'

  Jennifer did not want to contemplate Hunter's reaction to her departure and, pushing back her chair, she rose to her feet. 'There are a few things I still have to pack before I'm ready to leave.'

  'Shall I send Agnes up to help you?'

  Jennifer shook her head. 'That won't be necessary, thank you.'

  Upstairs in her room, a few minutes later, Jennifer packed the last of her possessions and fastened the catches on her suitcases. There was a lump in her throat that just would not go down and, after taking a last long look at the room in which she had had to discard so many of her hopes and desires, she picked up her suitcases and went downstairs.

  Saying goodbye to Alice Maynard was not easy, but they both managed to keep their tears in check, which was more than could be said for Emily the cook, and Agnes, who had always been ready and willing when she had been needed. Jennifer shook hands with them, and then, impulsively, she hugged Alice Maynard before climbing into her Fiat and driving away.

  Just beyond the lane of pepper trees she saw Danny emerge from one of the camps and walk towards the small, truck he always drove around in. She could not leave without a word to him and, braking sharply, she turned down the window.

  'Goodbye, Danny,' she called to him, 'and thank you for looking after my car so well.'

  Danny approached her with the broad rim of his old felt hat pulled forward to shade his eyes from the sun, and Jennifer knew that she would always see him that way in her thoughts.

  'Are you leaving Vogelsvlei, nonnie?' he asked with a certain amount of astonishment.

  'I'm returning to Cape Town,' she confessed, and Danny was clearly taken aback.

  'We'll miss you, Nonnie Jennifer.'

  That was so typical of Danny, she thought. There was no elaborate display of regret, just a simple statement which she knew came direct from his heart. She knew him that way, and she would remember him that way too.

  'I'll miss you all,' she confessed, but in her heart she finished off the statement with, 'but I'll miss Hunter most of all.'

  She eased her foot off the clutch and accelerated, and with a last wave of her hand she left Danny standing beside his truck. There were tears in her eyes, almost too many for her to see where she was going, but she could not stop; she dared not—not yet!

  When she reached the main road she pulled off to the side and switched off the car's engine for a moment. She could not see Vogelsvlei's homestead from there, but she knew more or less where it lay and, drying he
r eyes, she stared in that direction for a long time. She would soon be on her way to Cape Town, but she had left an irretrievable part of her behind with a man who had no use for it. He had her heart in the palm of his hand, and he was crushing it cruelly. He had not asked for her love, but she had given it, and once given, she could never take it back.

  Tears filled her eyes once more, but she brushed them away with the back of her hand in a gesture of irritation and anger. She would perhaps never come this way again, so she had better take one last look at the countryside before continuing on her way back, for once she had started the car there would be no looking back. The past would be behind her, and that was where it would stay. She had to face the future, and she would have to be strong. She would, eventually, find her solace in work, and she would have to learn to live with this new pain.

  A car hooted loudly at two ostriches which were being driven across the road, and the sound jerked her out of her mood of self-pity and misery. She turned the key in the ignition and, without a backward glance, drove back the way she had come a little more than two months ago.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Jennifer's first weekend in Cape Town was utterly miserable. It rained all the time, forcing her to stay indoors, and she found that the loneliness and emptiness she had envisaged had now become a reality. She had delayed contacting Matron Griffiths, deciding that she was not yet ready to return to work, but being confined to her flat during this wet weekend was sheer agony. She had to do something to keep herself busy, or go quietly mad with longing, so she cleaned out the flat and tidied the cupboards. When that was done, she waxed the furniture with unusual vigour and concentration, and cleaned the silver. Anything was better than sitting around brooding and longing for something she could not have, and her extensive training did not include nursing an aching heart.

  She made herself something to eat on the Sunday evening, but, like every other meal she had prepared for herself since her return, it turned to sawdust in her mouth, so she scraped it into a bowl for the neighbour's cat, washed the dishes, and packed them neatly into the cupboard. The flat had never been so tidy in all the years she had lived there, she decided cynically when she tried to settle down in the lounge with an out-of-date magazine, but it lay unopened in her lap while her mind darted backwards and forwards over the one subject she wanted so desperately to avoid.

  Hunter! What was he doing? Had he been angered by her sudden departure, or had he been relieved? She presumed it was the latter, but that thought merely increased the ache in her heart. He despised her, and yet, on two specific occasions, he had wanted her. She could not understand it even now, and perhaps she never would. He was rude, arrogant, and insulting, she told herself in an effort to assuage the pain, but if she had to choose where she wanted most to be at that moment, she would choose to be with him.

  'Oh, God, help me!' she groaned aloud, and flinging the magazine aside she went to the telephone and dialled Mike Hoffman's number out of sheer desperation. She needed someone to talk to, and Mike was the only one who would understand at that moment.

  Mike arrived twenty minutes later and eased his lean frame on to the small sofa beside her, but his keen, dark glance did not miss the bruised look beneath her eyes, nor the shadows that lurked in their hazel depths.

  'Things didn't work out so well with Hunter, I take it,' he observed calmly, and she shook her head, biting down hard on a quivering lip.

  'The situation became impossible.'

  With a cheerfulness for which she could willingly have throttled him, Mike said: 'Oh, well, there are still plenty of fish in the sea.'

  'There'll never be another like Hunter Maynard.'

  Mike sobered at once. 'It's like that, is it?'

  'It's like that,' she confirmed, and for the first time since leaving Vogelsvlei she felt like bursting into tears.

  'Bear up, sweetheart,' he said gently, placing a comforting arm about her shoulders. 'Old Mike's still here, and if you ever need a shoulder to cry on, just call and I'll come running.'

  Taking him at his word, she lowered her head on to his shoulder and wept unrestrainedly into the handkerchief he pressed into her hands. He comforted her,, but wisely let her cry until she felt drained and curiously at peace.

  'You've helped me out of plenty of scrapes in the past, and you've stood by me in difficult times,' she said eventually when she had wiped away her tears, and was in control of herself once more. 'I don't know if I've ever told you how much I've appreciated it, and still do.'

  'Isn't that what friends are for?' he asked with a smile of understanding in his dark eyes, and she leaned forward to kiss him spontaneously on the cheek.

  'You're sweet, Mike, and you've always been so very good to me.'

  'I also happen to be very thirsty,' he brushed aside her remarks. 'Do you think you could rustle up a cup of coffee?'

  Jennifer smiled shakily and went through to the kitchen. It was good to be doing something, she did not mind what, and she felt a great deal better when she eventually returned to the lounge with their coffee.

  'Are you going back to the General?' Mike asked at length.

  'For a time, yes, but I do feel I need a change.'

  'I'm looking for a good receptionist-cum-nursing Sister.' He eyed her speculatively. 'Will you consider it?'

  Jennifer smiled. 'I might just surprise you and pitch up at your consulting-rooms one morning.'

  Mike remained with her for quite some time. He talked about his work, about the rooms he had acquired where his patients could consult him, and he finally had her laughing at herself when he recounted the times he had had to save her from the wrath of her superiors when she had still been a student nurse.

  Those had been good times, Jennifer recalled when Mike had gone. They had been a carefree bunch; they had taken their nursing seriously, but they had also had a lot of fun. The difficult times had come later, when responsibilities had curtailed their often childish pranks, and then there had been Colin. His death had been a blow from which she had thought she would never recover, and yet she had. It had taken a rude, arrogant man like Hunter Maynard to put her back into life's orbit, but in the process she had laid herself wide open to the heartache which was now tearing her insides apart.

  She must not think about it, she told herself sternly. She would get over it if she tried, but her mind showed her no mercy, for it conjured up a vision of Hunter's harsh features, his eyes mocking, and his smile taunting. She pressed her fingertips against her eyelids, trying desperately to blot out his image, but it remained with her, bringing back the pain and the longing, and the hopeless yearning for the impossible.

  Hunter was not the kind of man one could forget easily, she realised yet again when she eventually went to bed to lie staring into the darkness with pain-filled eyes, but somehow she would have to succeed in her efforts. It would take time to wrench him from her heart and her mind, she told herself, but something warned her that she was contemplating the impossible. Time might ease the pain, but it could never erase the memory.

  Jennifer telephoned Matron Griffiths at the hospital on the Monday morning, hoping to make an appointment to see her at some time during the day, but Matron Griffiths sounded rather vague at first, and then quite adamant that she could see her only the following day. Jennifer found it rather strange. She knew Matron Griffiths as a clear-thinking, decisive person, but she resigned herself eventually to the fact that she would have to face yet another day with nothing to do but fight her way through the hours.

  The sun came out for the first time that morning since her return to Cape Town, and Jennifer took the opportunity to go out and buy a few necessary things. She took her time, but walking about idly was not something she enjoyed, and she arrived back at her flat within less than an hour to face the rest of the day alone. She had been given a taste, these last few days, of how lonely and empty her life was going to be in the future, and it was something she could not bear thinking about. There would, perhaps, be a c
ertain amount of solace in work for her, but she could not work twenty-four hours a day, and heaven only knew what she was going to do with the hours she would have to herself.

  The day dragged by, each hour like an eternity of agonising torture until she felt sure she would go mad if she did not find something to occupy her mind. Hunter, Hunter, Hunter! Like a faulty record she could think of nothing else. With every beat of her heart the longing grew more intense until it settled like a lead weight in her breast, weighing her down, and reducing her to a tearful, listless object which she was beginning to despise.

  'Pull yourself together, Jennifer Casey!' she told herself sharply when at last the setting sun etched Table Mountain like a magnificent monument against the darkening sky, and she continued to reprimand herself in this manner as she went through to her small kitchen to prepare a light meal for herself.

  She was not hungry, but she forced herself to eat, and washed it down later with a strong cup of coffee. The long night lay ahead of her like a threatening shadow, but she dared not think of it, and she concentrated instead on washing the dishes and tidying up the kitchen.

  It was well after eight that evening when someone leaned heavily on the doorbell and, relieved at the thought that Mike had decided to drop in, Jennifer hurried through the lounge to let him in. It was not Mike, however, whom she found standing on her doorstep, and her welcoming smile froze on her lips.

  'Hunter!' she breathed his name in a voice that sounded raw with suppressed emotion and, without waiting for an invitation, he pushed past her into the lounge and slammed the door behind him. He was so tall, so broad, and so exquisitely vital that he seemed to dwarf the room, and her heart was beating so fast that she could hardly breathe when she met the full impact of his ferocious glance. 'Who gave you my address?' she asked with difficulty.

  'My aunt kindly supplied it from her files at the hospital,' he bit out the words, then he flung a large, curious-looking flat box into the nearest chair, and turned back to face her with a look on his harsh face that sent a familiar shiver of fear racing through her. 'You had no right to leave Vogelsvlei without consulting me,' he rasped accusingly.