by Isobel Chace
‘Thank you.’ Sara wondered what she wanted. ‘John Halliday said you had been looking for me,’ she went on.
‘Did he?’ Julia’s figure traced a pattern on the bedclothes. ‘Did he also say what I wanted?’
Sara smiled. ‘He said you wanted to know the colour of the dress I’m wearing tonight, but I thought he must have got it wrong.’
‘Well, I had to have some excuse,’ Julia said casually. ‘It wasn’t really for that, of course.’ She looked up and smiled a little awkwardly.
‘I came because Matt asked me to,’ she said. ‘Men never think what a spot they put one in when they ask one to do them a favour, do they? And of course we keep on obliging them! But then women are such fools!’ She sighed prettily. ‘You’ll have to forgive me, but really it wasn’t my idea!’
Sara put her comb down with deliberation on the dressing table.
‘Suppose you tell me what the idea is?’ she suggested.
‘Well, if you really want it straight — here goes! Matt always hates upsetting his mother and she, poor dear, has set her heart on having this party tonight. You know what mothers are! They don’t think what they’re getting other people into! Well, naturally Matt was a bit worried about the whole affair. I mean it’s not easy for him to produce you as his fiancée. No offence, you understand, but you’ve always had to work for your living and can’t really be expected to dress in Paris models, can you? But people like Uncle David expect that sort of thing from a girl. So you do see, don’t you?’
‘No,’ said Sara uncompromisingly.
Julia sighed again, perhaps not quite so prettily.
‘That he doesn’t want you to go tonight,’ she explained softly. ‘You can easily say you have a headache, or are really too tired after nursing that little girl. You know the sort of thing!’
‘Perhaps I do,’ Sara agreed easily.
‘Then you’ll do it?’ There was a sudden eagerness in Julia’s voice.
‘I’ll think about it.’ Sara smiled at her in the looking glass. ‘Why did you come, Julia?’ she asked. ‘Matt never sent you, did he?’
Julia’s mouth compressed into a thin straight line.
‘No, he didn’t!’ she snapped. ‘I was trying to make it easy for you. But if you think that you can walk into the Halifax family so easily, you have another thought coming! None of us will accept you! It was all agreed at breakfast this morning, if you must know. We built up this place. Why should you benefit?’
‘Forgive me if I’m a bit dense, but what exactly was decided at breakfast this morning?’
‘We decided that we’d all ignore you,’ Julia said reluctantly. ‘We’d just pretend that you weren’t there. Well, naturally I didn’t object — I don’t want you in the family any more than anyone else! But I didn’t want to see you humiliated like that, or Matt either.’
‘I see.’
‘Do you? The old Colonial families seem a bit harsh maybe to someone from England, but this is a harsh country. You’ve got to either kill or be killed here. It’s how we live!’
Somehow Sara managed to summon up a smile.
‘How very uncivilized!’
‘Well, you have taken it coolly, I must say!’ Julia exclaimed. ‘I don’t believe you’re really in love with Matt at all!’
‘No?’ Sara asked. ‘Well, it hardly seems to matter, does it? And now, would you mind going?’
She didn’t see Julia go, but she knew that she had, for she heard the door slam shut as she went.
Sara went through all the motions of preparing for the party. She pressed her one evening dress and had to admit that there was some justice in Julia’s remarks. It was certainly not a Paris model. But it suited her and she was fond of it. The skirt hung well and moved attractively when she walked. It was simple, but then simplicity suited her — or so she had always thought.
John went back to his own farm after lunch and Felicity and James went off into the boiling sun, apparently oblivious of the heat. Left alone, Sara sat on the verandah and tried to pretend to herself that she was reading. In fact she was thinking of Uncle David! The man with the embarrassing sense of humour, who couldn’t see a girl unless she was wearing a Paris gown!
This was her opportunity. Hadn’t she been looking for some reason to explain to Matt that she couldn’t marry him? And now here it was handed to her on a plate, and all she could do about it was to sit on the verandah and feel sorry for herself! All she had to do was to walk to the telephone and ask for Matt. He would be glad that she had changed her mind. He would be able to go back to that girl that everyone seemed to think he was carrying a torch for. Was she so selfish that she couldn’t put his happiness higher than her own?
The telephone was in the hallway. She went to it, closing the door into the sitting-room as she went.
‘Is that you, dear?’ Mrs. Wayne’s voice called out.
Sara popped her head round the door.
‘So you’re back,’ her aunt said. ‘Did those two tell you that they finally got around to telling me that they were in love with each other?’
‘Yes, I’m so glad.’ But not now! Sara thought. Not now!
‘I’m going back to England with them,’ Mrs. Wayne went on. ‘I stayed here because of Noel, but I never really liked the life here after Independence, and Felicity will need help with all those babies she’s planning to have. She’s only a baby herself and couldn’t possibly know what to do!’
So Matt had been right about her aunt as well. For some reason this made Sara feel lower than ever. The house would be quite free for them to live in, only they weren’t going to live anywhere! Not together anyway!
‘I hope you’ll all be very happy,’ she said out loud.
‘We shall be,’ her aunt said certainly. ‘I know better than to interfere in their married life, so they’ll be very glad to have me around. Baby-sitting is very much appreciated in England, or so I’ve heard.’
‘It certainly is!’ Sara agreed. ‘I’m just going to telephone Matt about something and then I’ll come back.’
Mrs. Wayne nodded happily.
Only she wouldn’t be going back, Sara thought. She would pack her clothes and leave a note for her aunt. She would take the jeep down to the station and catch the train to Dar-es-Salaam. There would be no difficulty in her getting a job there. Hospitals were always only too glad to get well-trained European staff. It was a bleak picture. The station would be terribly hot and she had no idea when the next train would leave. She had an idea too that Tom would not approve of her hanging around. He would know that she had come from Kwaheri and he might even ring the estate to tell them she was there!
She shut the door into the sitting-room and walked slowly over to the telephone just as it began to ring. Eagerly she picked up the receiver.
‘Hullo,’ she said.
‘Hullo.’ She thought it was Mrs. Halifax, but the line was so bad that she couldn’t be sure.
‘I can’t hear very well,’ she said.
‘No,’ the voice said, and explained that the heat might have melted some of the connections. It was hotter than ever that day, so that might have been what she had said.
Then she thought the voice mentioned Matt. Desperately she tried to hear what was being said.
‘What about Matt?’ she asked distinctly.
With a sinking heart she listened and tried to make intelligible what the voice was saying. ‘Bad cold. Headache. High temperature. Not at all well.’ Polio! her mind registered in a panic. Matt had polio! He could easily have caught it from Hedda Friedrich. He had been there when she had been brought in, and he was just the type to get it most badly. He was so big and strong!
‘I’ll come at once!’ she shouted into the telephone.
‘No, no,’ said the voice. For a moment the line was quite clear. ‘What should I do, nurse?’
‘Keep him quiet,’ Sara said firmly. ‘And telephone Dr. Cengupta.’
She slammed down the receiver and ran into the drawing-r
oom.
‘It’s Matt,’ she burst out. ‘He isn’t well.’
Mrs. Wayne looked up from the magazine she was reading.
‘What’s the matter with him?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know for sure,’ Sara said hurriedly. ‘But I shall have to go up to the house and see what’s happening. I’ll take the jeep.’
‘Then you’d better go out the back way,’ her aunt suggested. ‘I told the driver to drive it round there under the tree. The metal gets so hot otherwise that I’m always afraid of your burning yourself!’
Sara thanked her, but she was hardly listening.
It would be too much to hope that two cases would recover without leaving any sign of paralysis. And what would it mean to Matt? She thought of him working on the estate, his strong muscles responding to some challenge. It would be terrible! There must be some way of preventing such a thing! Surely good nursing must mean something? And he would have the very best. Nothing would be too much trouble. She would massage him until she dropped, or her arms fell off.
She ran into her room and searched for her equipment that James had shot to one side of the wardrobe. Quickly she checked to make sure that she had everything she needed. Thermometer, aspirin, bandages, etc. Everything was there. She shut the bag with a sharp click and forced herself to pause to think if there was anything else that she needed. Then satisfied, she ran out of the room and down the hall.
‘Sara!’ her aunt called out.
‘Yes?’
‘Just a moment.’
‘What is it?’
‘Matt was here this morning! He was all right then.’
‘Was he?’ She tried not to sound impatient. ‘I must go, Aunt. Goodbye.’
She didn’t wait to see if her aunt answered. She hurried straight through the back bedroom and out through the french windows. She had forgotten all about the deep ditches that had been dug out of the dead soil behind the house and had not yet been filled in. Desperately she tried to find something to cling on to as she hurtled down to the bottom of one of them.
‘Matt!’ she cried out, and was aware of sharp shooting pains going through her body.
When she looked up, she could see nothing but sky and the two straight sides of the trench she had fallen into.
CHAPTER TWELVE
It was a curious dream, with herself and Julia playing golf together. Julia was winning, which wasn’t very surprising because of course only Matt could beat her. James had said so. Sara opened her eyes and wondered for a moment where she was. It was dark and her clothes were wet and cold; her body, too, was stiff and bruised. She remembered then that she had fallen into one of the pits at the back of the house — hours ago. She had spent a long time shouting for help, but no one had heard her. Surely, she thought, someone must have missed her by now. They would be searching for her, she had no doubt of that, but would they ever think to look so near to the house?
She was beginning to shiver. It was difficult to remember how hot it had been earlier in the day before the dew had saturated the ground and the sun had fled the sky. She would have to do something active to keep herself warm. With difficulty she forced her aching body upright and leant against the wall of the trench. Matt had certainly been making a good job of the earthworks! She wondered if it had really been necessary to dig away so much of the dead soil before bringing in the new.
During the afternoon she had thought that she might cut steps into the sides of the pit and get herself out that way, but as fast as she had dug, as fast the sides had fallen in around her until she had given up. But now, she thought, with the dew dampening the soil perhaps it would hold.
Painfully she began to burrow into the earth, tearing her hands and ruining her finger nails. Slowly she began to climb. First one foot and then two. On the third, she fell back and had to scramble on to her fourth foothold before it was really deep enough. She clutched at the drifting soil and began to shout again.
She thought she saw a shadow peering down at her from the top of the trench, but when she cried out to it, it vanished. It was a horrible feeling. She didn’t believe in spirits, but she knew that the Africans did. There was that tree that none of them would walk under. She tried to think of something else, but she couldn’t bring herself to cry out again. ‘It’ might come back!
She set herself with greater diligence to her digging, pulling herself slowly upwards and more often than not slipping back in the loose soil. If Uncle David saw her now, she reflected ruefully, he would certainly have reason for cavilling at her appearance. Her back ached and her hands were raw and bleeding. She could feel the dirt in her hair and on her face and she could see it, in the moonlight, on her clothing. A bath — hot and filled with bath salts — began to obsess her. That and the nagging anxiety over Matt that had never left her.
She was not sure how high she had climbed when she first saw the hurricane lamp coming towards her. She must have been fairly near the top, she thought, or she would not have been able to see it.
‘I’m here!’ she whispered. ‘I’m here! Please find me!’
The lamp came steadily nearer.
‘Sara!’
She tried to answer, but no sound would come out of her dusty throat.
The lamp flickered and she thought it was going away again.
‘I’m here!’ she sobbed.
Immediately the lamp stood still and then slowly began to come towards her.
‘Tell me exactly where you are?’ the man’s voice asked her. It was odd how like Matt’s it sounded. But that was impossible.
‘I’ve fallen down one of the pits,’ she managed. ‘Do be careful. There are several of them.’
The man chuckled. ‘What a knuckle-headed thing to do,’ he teased her gently. ‘Poor little Sara! Where were you going in such a hurry?’
He put the lamp on the edge of the pit and reached down, grasping her hands.
‘I was going to Matt,’ she explained tearfully. ‘He’s ill! Mrs. Halifax rang up. He sounded dreadfully bad!’
‘Did he?’ His voice sounded gentle and sympathetic. ‘Look, I can’t lift you out on my own,’ he said more urgently. ‘The ground I’m sitting on will give way. I’ll lower you down to the bottom again and go and get some help. Okay?’
‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Who are you?’ she added.
He chuckled again, holding her tightly until her feet felt the ground solid beneath her.
‘I’m Matt,’ he said, his whole voice trembling with laughter. ‘Sit tight, darling, I shan’t be long!’
‘Matt? But you can’t be!’
She sat at the bottom of the trench in a stupefied silence. Matt! He must have got up to search for her, she concluded. He must be mad! As though she couldn’t have waited! — As though she wouldn’t rather anything than that he should endanger his chances of recovery. She would send him back to bed the moment he returned! But how like him to sacrifice himself for someone else like that. ‘Oh, Matt, I love you so much!’ she said out loud.
There was a scuffle at the top of the trench and an enormous shape came hurtling down to join her. Sara gasped and huddled against the side.
‘Did I startle you?’ Matt asked. ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart.’ He put an arm round her and drew her against him. ‘Uncle David has gone off to get some ropes, so I came back to keep you company.’
Anxiously Sara struggled out of his embrace and felt his forehead.
‘You don’t feel very hot,’ she said doubtfully.
He pinned her arms to her sides and kissed her nose.
‘There’s nothing the matter with me,’ he assured her solemnly. ‘It’s Marjorie’s infant that has the cold and the temperature, and thanks to your advice, she called in Karim who put him to bed. Satisfied?’
‘You mean you aren’t ill at all?’ she demanded.
‘I mean exactly that!’
It was silly to feel resentful that there was nothing the matter with him at all!
‘I thought you had polio,�
�� she confessed, not without indignation.
‘Did you? Was that why you were in such a hurry?’
She didn’t answer that.
‘I was going to write to you,’ she said instead. ‘To tell you that I can’t possibly marry you. It would be quite wrong for both of us. You do see that, don’t you?’
‘Because you thought that I had polio?’
She could imagine his expression. His mouth a little tender and his eyes—
‘No, of course not! Before I thought you had polio,’ she explained earnestly. ‘You — you’re really in love with someone else, and I am too!’ she finished triumphantly.
His arms fell to his side.
‘With whom?’ he asked sharply. ‘With John Halliday?’
‘Of course not!’ She dismissed him quickly. Somehow she couldn’t bear to think of Matt thinking that she might be in love with someone whom he knew.
He sat down comfortably on the floor of the trench and gazed up at her.
‘I’m not sure that I believe you,’ he said easily. ‘But the ropes will be here in a minute and I don’t want to be interrupted when we really go into this.’
‘There’s nothing to go into!’ she said stiffly.
‘Isn’t there?’ She could tell that he was grinning. ‘Then my ears must be deceiving me. I thought just now that you said something that brought me down here in a hurry. I might have been mistaken, but I don’t think I was!’
It was outrageous that he should sound so triumphant!
‘Oh, don’t be so silly!’ she said crossly. ‘You know as well as I do that your family won’t accept me! Julia told me so, and she was quite right! I couldn’t possibly live up to their ways. In fact I shouldn’t want to even if I could! Uncle David may be doing his noblesse oblige act now in rescuing me, but you see what he thinks of me as a future niece!’
Matt sighed. ‘Julia again!’ he said dryly. ‘I suppose you’ve met Uncle David?’
‘No,’ Sara admitted a little uncertainly.
