Home is Goodbye

by Isobel Chace

  ‘Ah well, you may be right, of course,’ he said. ‘Uncle David is a very outspoken man, he certainly wouldn’t hide what he thought about you!’

  They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. It was so unfair, Sara thought. Why should their marriage depend on Uncle David? Mrs. Halifax had approved! She might have reopened the argument, but at that moment voices began to come towards them in the darkness and a dark shape that she took to be a face appeared over the top of the trench.

  ‘We’ll be having you out, lassie, never fear,’ said a strong Northern voice. ‘Poor girl, I’ve been telling that fellow of yours he should take better care of you!’ He snorted. ‘Here, Matt, catch this and give the lass a hand up!’

  The rope came dangling down the side of the pit. Matt grabbed the end of it and held it out to Sara.

  ‘Hang on to it hard,’ he commanded, ‘and they’ll haul you out. I’ll be here, so you won’t fall.’

  She tried to take a grip of the rope, but her hands were too sore.

  ‘I can’t,’ she said tearfully.

  ‘What’s the matter? Lost the rope?’ the voice asked from the top. ‘Here, I’ll throw you down a torch.’

  It landed with a dull plop on the ground. Matt picked it up and shone it on Sara’s hands. She heard his quick intake of breath, but did not dare look at them herself.

  ‘I’m awfully sorry, Matt,’ she whispered.

  ‘Sorry!’ he exclaimed. ‘And to think I should have allowed you to stand there arguing with me! Get on my back and I’ll carry you up.’

  She thought she would be too heavy for him, but his voice brooked no argument. She managed to get on to him, piggy-back style, while he tied the rope round his waist and grasped it firmly with his two hands.

  ‘Pull away!’ he called up.

  In a matter of seconds they were hauled up to the top of the pit and Sara found herself standing on her own feet with both Matt and Uncle David supporting her.

  ‘You had us worried this time, lass,’ Uncle David told her.

  It was comforting to know that someone had been anxious for her. Matt hadn’t mentioned it at all. He seldom said anything about his deepest feelings, she thought with sudden intuition.

  ‘It was so silly of me,’ she apologized. ‘James and Felicity told me the pits were there, but I forgot all about them.’

  ‘She thought when Mother rang up that it was I who was ill,’ Matt explained tersely.

  ‘Ah!’ Uncle David agreed understandingly. ‘She’s a good lass, this girl of yours. Can’t understand why she should choose a pig-headed good-for-nothing like you! Look at that hospital of yours! Much too small!’

  ‘I thought you disapproved of the hospital,’ Matt said slyly.

  ‘Who said so?’ the older man demanded.

  Sara laughed, her voice trembling into tears.

  ‘Better take the lass home, Matt,’ Uncle David suggested. ‘I’ll put the rope away and tell everyone she’s been found.’

  Matt nodded.

  ‘Coming, sweet?’ he asked.

  Sara nodded. She tried to speak, but now that it was all over, she was too tired even to do that.

  She first became conscious that there was someone in the room when a hand reached out towards her pillow.

  ‘Who’s that?’ she asked. She turned quickly over in bed and was astonished at the stiffness of her limbs.

  ‘It’s me, Julia.’

  ‘Oh.’ Sara sat up in bed and turned on the light. ‘What do you want?’ she asked.

  ‘I came to tell you that I was leaving,’ the other girl said lightly. She looked more beautiful than ever, her hat shading her eyes against the light and her mouth half smiling.

  ‘Leaving?’ Sara asked. ‘But why?’

  ‘I hadn’t too much choice,’ Julia admitted. ‘Once you’d met Uncle David there wasn’t much point in my remaining, was there? One way and another you’ve managed to trump all my aces. When I thought I’d got you the sack, you got engaged to Matt instead, and then, when I think I’ve finally got rid of you, you fall down a hole and have to be dramatically rescued.’

  ‘But why did you want to get rid of me?’

  Julia shrugged her beautiful shoulders.

  ‘I’m up to my eyes in debt, my dear. Oh well, it’s no good crying over spilt milk. I shall go back to Dar-es-Salaam and marry a millionaire I know down there. The only trouble is that he doesn’t play golf. Matt does, you see.’

  ‘But surely—’ Sara protested. ‘How much do you owe? Surely the family would see you through?’

  ‘Do you really think so?’ Julia gave a derisive laugh. ‘It would put back Matt’s soya beans for ten years!’

  How on earth much could she possibly owe? Sara wondered.

  ‘Why are you telling me all this?’ she asked.'

  ‘Because I’m much like the next girl, I guess,’ Julia said casually. ‘I don’t like feeling uncomfortable and you didn’t exactly bolster up my ego. Also I like to be liked and you didn’t like me at all! I figured if I came along and made a clean breast of it all, you would be sympathetic — you wouldn’t hate me any more anyway. It’s kind of useful to have an ally in a family such as ours. They won’t be pleased when I marry Edgar, but you’ll put in a good word for me, won’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll do that,’ Sara promised. ‘If you’re sure it’s really necessary.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ Julia said bitterly. She turned away to admire herself in the mirror. ‘By the way, what did you think of Uncle David?’ she asked.

  ‘I liked him,’ Sara admitted. ‘But I only saw him in the dark. Matt brought me home almost immediately. Where does he live?’

  ‘The whole of Africa knows Uncle David. He doesn’t live anywhere. He’s one of the old-timers who travel the continent. The Africans are his children and the animals his friends. He couldn’t live in a house now for longer than a week or so!’

  ‘And he wouldn’t know a Paris model if he saw one,’ Sara put in slyly.

  Julia turned round quickly and looked at her.

  ‘Ouch!’ she said, and grinned suddenly. ‘I’m off now. Be happy! Oh, and tell Matt to buy you a ring before you meet the rest of the family, will you?’

  When she was gone, Sara snapped off the light and lay back against the pillows. Poor Julia! She wondered if she had been very much in love with Matt, but honesty compelled her to admit that she didn’t think it had gone very deep with the other girl. She was sorry for her having to leave Kwaheri and sorry for her that she couldn’t marry the man she wanted.

  I wonder if I seem as odd to her as she seems to me, she thought. Julia had certainly played with fire and it looked as though she had been burned. Sara hoped that she was going to be happy. Tonight she wanted everyone to be happy, for she had an inkling, right at the back of her mind, that she and Matt were going to be happier than two people had ever been before.

  ‘Julia has gone!’

  Matt stood gazing out of the window, his eyes on some far-off spot, not seeing, but not liking to turn round either. He made his announcement diffidently, as though Sara wouldn’t like the fact.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Do you mind very much?’

  ‘I?’ He turned round then. ‘Why should I? I don’t want her to make a fool of herself, that’s all.’

  Sara searched his face. ‘Sure?’ she asked. It was the last doubt lingering in her mind and she wanted it laid once and for all.

  ‘Quite sure!’ He looked puzzled. ‘How did you know?’ he asked.

  ‘She came in to say goodbye last night.’

  ‘Then she had no right to! Couldn’t she see you were exhausted?’ He came over to the chair where she was sitting and turned her hands up for his inspection. ‘Are they sore?’ he asked.

  ‘Not very.’ He prodded gently and she winced. ‘Don’t!’ she begged him. ‘I like you to hold them, but that hurts!’

  He looked amused. ‘Tell me about Julia,’ he suggested.

  ‘She’s going to marry someone called Edg
ar. She was worried about it, because she didn’t think the family liked him, that’s all.’

  ‘Is it?’ He smiled at her. ‘I thought there was a little bit more to it than that. Am I right?’

  ‘You might be,’ she admitted reluctantly. ‘But she’s gone now. She left you a message—’ She looked up at him bravely. ‘She said you ought to give me a ring before you introduced me to the rest of the family!’

  His eyes crinkled up with amusement. ‘I thought you weren’t going to marry me,’ he teased her.

  She looked down at that. What say she wasn’t right? What say he didn’t really love her after all?

  ‘I thought so too,’ she said at last. ‘You see, Matt, I — I found I couldn’t marry a man who didn’t love me as much as I loved him.’

  ‘And what made you think that I didn’t?’ he demanded.

  She looked up at him then, with laughter in her eyes. ‘You never told me,’ she said. ‘How could I be expected to know? You liked me; you found it difficult to be angry with me; and your female cousins were arriving en masse! How could I have known?’

  ‘It was difficult then,’ he explained. ‘You were so upset that I hadn’t sent you that note and I felt such a brute. Laura had made her plans so obvious that I thought you were avoiding me and, anyway, I didn’t think you were in love with me then, so I thought I’d try and persuade you for some other reason.’

  ‘You nearly broke my heart,’ she told him.

  ‘But everyone knew I was in love with you!’ he exclaimed. ‘Mother did, Cengupta, James and Felicity, even Nurse Lucy was looking slyly at me!’

  ‘But I didn’t know! I thought everyone was wrong — I thought you were in love with someone else.’

  ‘So you said last night,’ he said grimly.

  ‘But I was wrong?’

  He nodded. ‘When I saw you with that blue sari Kamala gave you I could have eaten you!’ he told her. He slipped his arms about her and drew her close to him. ‘And now,’ he threatened, ‘now I am going to eat you!’

  ‘I was going down to Dar-es-Salaam,’ she told him. ‘I should have gone if your mother hadn’t telephoned.’ She suddenly sat up very straight. ‘Oh, Matt!’ she exclaimed. ‘How’s the baby?’

  ‘It’s fine.’ He pulled her close again just as the door opened. ‘Now who is it?’ he demanded. ‘The trouble with this place is that one can never be alone! What do you want?’ he asked of the frightened African face that appeared in the doorway. ‘Well?’

  The African gazed at him in horror.

  ‘Kwaheri, bwana,’ he stuttered, and hurried away again.

  ‘Kwaheri,’ Matt replied in muffled tones. He couldn’t do any better. He was too busy kissing Sara.