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  LOVE THIS STRANGER

  Rosalind Brett

  Dave thought that Tess was a boy.

  When he found that the nineteen-year-old girl was single-handedly running a general store in the middle of the African veld, Dave Paterson was horrified. And despite Tess's protests, he took the store out of her hands and ruthlessly reorganized her life.

  So the gentle, undemanding friendship of Martin Cramer came as a welcome antidote to Dave's forceful tactics—until the grief and misunderstanding brought by Martin’s need of her made Tess realize that Dave had also taken over her heart!

  BOOK I

  CHAPTER ONE

  DAVE did not need to drive in and out of the orange and grapefruit groves. By circling the plantation he could weigh up the condition of the trees and pick out the percentage which would have to be destroyed and replaced. Back there on the grazing land the cattle were in fair shape, and the house would do — when it had had a few more windows knocked into it. One way and another he would have to spend plenty, but it was time his accumulation of cash was used to accomplish his ambition. Further globe-wandering would only eat into it with nothing to show, and he’d had enough of it, anyway. He wanted a home in a decent climate.

  The foreman walked back with him to the car. He was a small Afrikaner named Marais, and he was hoping a little desperately that the Englishman would buy the Zinto farm and drag it up from the state of half-rot into which it had slipped since the last owner died. What a relief and a pleasure it would be to work for someone with integrity.

  “I’ve reckoned up values,” Dave said. “The next step is a conference with the executors and attorney. Would you like me to telegraph you, Marais?”

  “I would, sir. Is there anything you’d like me to get started on?”

  Dave’s chiselled mouth moved in a smile. “I haven’t bought it yet — but I would like to see the lanes cleared between the groves and the roads over the farm evened out.”

  “The trouble is lack of labourers.”

  “I know. Let’s leave it that if I telegraph I’ve bought, you’ll engage the first fifty boys and get stuck into it right away.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Paterson.” Marais opened the car door. “Did you look in at the store on your way up?”

  “The store?” Half in the car, one leg dangling to the dusty track, Dave paused. “You mean the cement and iron building on the corner, as you turn in from the main road? That goes with the estate, doesn’t it?”

  Marais nodded. “It’s actually a trading station, run by a man named Bentley, but he’s away on a cruise, getting over an illness. You might take a look at it. The boys spend their wages there.”

  “Right. I will.”

  The sedan slid off, leaving a billowing wake of pinkish-grey sand. Dave shifted in his seat for more comfort, and allowed his glance to rove to the right, over the pastures which undulated and disappeared into the foothills of the Witberg mountains. The view through the left window was made up entirely of Valencia orange trees carrying small green fruit, and an irregular patch of molten blue sky. On the other side of the plantation flowed the Zinto River, which irrigated the farm.

  It was better than any of the propositions he had so far investigated, and carried ample acreage for experiments. For ten years, in the tropics, he had promised himself something like this. Thirty-three was a pretty good age to start farming, and the fact that the estate was large precluded the possibility of frequent visits from neighbours, which suited Dave’s current mood admirably. In South Africa, where native servants were plentiful, a wife was not a necessity.

  His mouth twisted with a blend of cynicism and bitterness. It had been unpleasant, to say the least, to land in England just three days after his fiancée had married another man: a blow between the eyes penned on dainty, perfumed notepaper and tucked into a deckle-edged envelope. It was not that he blamed Enid for changing her mind — after all, they had not met for fifteen months and he had always been an unsatisfactory correspondent — but the cowardice of her means of confession had disgusted and disillusioned him. Well, all that was ten months away; he had travelled thirty thousand miles since then, and known other women.

  A red corrugated-iron roof pushed above a group of wattles, and as he passed, Dave noticed that it was the usual shabby little homestead of these parts. The house must belong, to the man Bentley, for only a screen of gums divided it from the beaten earth yard surrounding the native trading store.

  Dave stopped the car at the corner of the lane, and sat watching a slim boy in blue cotton slacks and a check shirt. On the back of his whitish curls the lad wore a wide-brimmed straw trilby, and his hands, as they counted the bales of skins and tossed them up to the native who was loading the ox cart, were brown, supple and unusually strong. Veld families ran into big numbers; he was probably one of the Bentley brood.

  Dave got out of the car and sauntered over. He spoke to the back of the check shirt.

  “Hello, son. Who’s running the place while your father’s away?”

  The young figure straightened and turned with deliberation. In a second Dave had flickered his gaze over the small face and erect shoulders, and absorbed some of the shock. This was no boy.

  “I am,” she answered. “I saw you drive up the track a couple of hours ago. Are you going to buy the estate?”

  “Maybe. Haven’t you any brothers?”

  “Yes. Two.” She turned and spoke quickly in Kaffir to the driver.

  “Are they kids like you?” Dave demanded.

  For the first time she looked straight at him with a pair of very blue eyes. “No, they’re both older, and I’m no kid, either. I’m nineteen.”

  “Why aren’t they here, taking care of things?”

  “Because they happen to be in England. One’s doing medicine at Liverpool, and the other is taking law in London.”

  “Good God! No mother?” he asked.

  “She went over to see my brothers two years ago, and got killed in an air crash on the way home. I was at school in Grahamstown, but my father’s health began to break, so I came home to be with him. If you’ve any more questions, come inside. I need some coffee.”

  A self-possessed young person with a way with the natives. Which didn’t alter the fact that a trading station in the midst of what was virtually a native reserve was no place for an unprotected girl.

  Dave walked through the store behind her. He saw the shelves jammed with mealie meal and beans, salt, sugar and leathery biltong, and was not unaware of the stench of pickled fish and drying goat and buckskins.

  The girl was already pouring coffee when Dave joined her in the crammed office at the back of the store. She had discarded the straw hat, and the short curls which made her look so young clung all over her head like a silver-gilt helmet.

  “You didn’t mention your name,” she said.

  “Dave Paterson, mining engineer from West Africa.”

  “I’m Tess Bentley.” She stirred her coffee, a small anxiety pleating the smooth forehead. “I hope you’re not thinking of turning us out?”

  “I haven’t bought the place yet, but if I do, I shall insist on a man managing this store. Your father must have been mad to leave you in charge.”

  “No, he was just sick — very sick. I’ve known most of the families round here since we first came to South Africa, when I was seven. There isn’t one who would do me the least harm.”

  “That’s hardly the point. It’s the one or two who haven’t known you that you have to guard against. Obviously, I couldn’t have a girl running a store on my property.”

  “I don’t see why,” she returned stubbornly. “I know this business inside out. In any case, I couldn’t afford to pay a European to take over for all the time my fa
ther will be away.”

  “Your family has made plenty out of this trading station,” he said curtly. “It won’t hurt you to drop a few hundred over the next few months.”

  She sipped at the mug held between her palms. “I expect you’re returning at once to the coast to make an offer for the property? Would you give my father the chance of paying for our plot and the buildings on it?”

  “I might, but only on condition of there always being a man on the spot.”

  “I’m as good as a man,” she said with sudden passion. “Come back at the week-end and watch me handle a shopful of customers.”

  “I certainly won’t,” he said coolly. “Your brothers are a pair of swine to allow a young sister to work for them in such conditions. And you ought to have more pride than to do it!”

  Her chin rose, displaying a jaw line of delicate strength. “My father’s mad, my brothers are swine and I’m a creature without pride. You seem to have written the Bentleys off rather thoroughly, Mr. Paterson.”

  “I’m afraid I’ve never had much respect for people who get rich on the natives’ pay.”

  “We’re not rich! I’ve just told you we can’t afford a manager.”

  “You may not have much ready cash. That’s understandable if you keep two grown men in England and another cruising round the world.” His mouth twisted with distaste. “I never saw such a sickening set-up in all my life. I’ll tell you this. If my offer for Zinto is accepted and you don’t put in a manager, I shall go to the court in Parsburg and demand action on the grounds of your being a minor.”

  Tess took a deep breath and firmed her lips. “You’re one of those men who never consider anything except in terms of black and white. I happen to care rather a lot for my father and brothers and if, by taking a few negligible risks, I can keep the business going, I’m not likely to shirk. For your information, Mr. Paterson, my brothers don’t know that I’m here alone, and my father was quite satisfied to leave me under the protection of the Mkize family, who have worked loyally for us for ten years. The boy you saw in the shop was one of the Mkize.”

  Dave stood up. “I remain unconvinced, and the ultimatum stands. Keep in touch with Marais, and if he tells you the estate is definitely passing into my hands, you’d better appoint a manager, quick — because if you don’t, I will, and I’ll also give your father notice to quit.”

  She, too, got to her feet. Her shrug was a blend of anger and resignation. “Very well. I suppose it’s unwomanly of me to hope you’ll break your neck before you reach the coast?”

  The beginnings of a smile twitched at Dave’s lips. “Thank you, little one,” he said. “I’ve had spells cast on me before and got through. So long ... Tess.”

  She accompanied him no farther than the door of the store, but her hearing registered the series of car noises before he cleared the bend and accelerated. So much for Mr. David Paterson. Tess went back to the office and poured some more coffee.

  Her mother had never liked the store, she remembered, yet her ambitions for the boys had kept the family there for twelve years. She had often said that she hoped her sons would remain in England and practise there; that later she and her husband and Tess would go over and settle on the Cornish coast, not far from the village where Tess was born. When her father had cracked up Tess had reminded him of this, but Ned Bentley had lifted his thick shoulders and shaken his head.

  “Funny how we all depended on her, Tess. It sounded great, when she used to say it, and we’d have been happy enough doing what she wanted. But you and I don’t want it. Not really.”

  Which was true. Sitting there amid the sacks and rolls of material cluttering the office, Tess realized with clarity that she wished for hardly a thing beyond what she had already. Except for four years at college in Grahamstown, she had had little contact with girls of her own age. Her dresses still hung in her wardrobe, useless now, and it was invariably with a sense of astonishment that she came upon the silver sandals and scarlet slippers among her other shoes in the rack.

  Her worst moments had come during the first weeks after her father had sailed. Since hearing that the heart symptoms had not recurred, she had given up worrying and slept like a baby.

  Tess liked the Zinto farm. In fact, but for her father’s breakdown and the absence of her brothers, she would have besought Ned to try to rent it for the Bentley family. It was a pity about this stiff-necked mining engineer, pure bad luck that a man of his type should be attracted to this corner of the Eastern Cape.

  Philosophically, she shouldered off the problem for a while, locked up the store and went to the house to test what Katie had cooked for lunch.

  A few days later Piet Marais came to the store. He bought some tobacco and smoked steadily till the bunch of natives had been served to their satisfaction. When Tess came to where he sat on an upturned case, he took his pipe from his mouth and gave a grin which revealed most of his yellowed teeth.

  “News for you, Tess. Mr. Paterson’s moving in next Thursday.”

  “Oh.” Tess hunched on to the counter, swinging her legs. “How old is your biggest boy, Piet?”

  “Jan? He’s fifteen.”

  “Too young, I’m afraid. The new boss says I’ve got to have a white man here. Know of anyone who’ll do?”

  Marais shook his mouse-grey head. “You won’t get a man for that sort of job unless you offer big money. This is a god-forsaken place to live if you haven’t a home or a wife.”

  “I’ve a good mind to let Mr. Paterson do his worst,” she said gloomily.

  “That would be unwise. Remember, he’ll be needing labour — I have orders to engage fifty boys at once — and their wages will be spent here. Soon you’ll be taking a couple of hundred a month from Zinto, and later even more. That alone should pay for an assistant.”

  “If it were only money,” she began, and left it there. Tess never said anything to accentuate her consciousness of being a woman. Men were hard enough to live among, without that.

  Later, she drafted an advertisement for a bilingual assistant, and addressed it to the Parsburg Examiner. It was simply a gesture for the benefit of the new owner. Tess was sure it would bring no replies.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE Bentley homestead lay back about seventy feet from the track which led up to the farmhouse. In the past six months the garden, which in Mrs. Bentley’s time had flamed with colour the whole year round, had begun to disappear into a blanket of weed. The red-hot pokers, succulent bush euphorbias, cassias and honeysuckle pushed out of beds of khaki bush weed, and the acacias and proteas, set just in front of the hedge of wattles and pollard pines, had become threaded with elephant grass.

  Inside, the one-storied house had a spare, outmoded atmosphere. The aroma of the whole house was compounded of skins and the paraffin with which Kate Mkize kept down the white ant. The furniture, of hardwood, had been kicked bare of varnish below knee-level by the Bentleys when young. Curtains, cushions and bed covers had faded to a universal drab which was the more depressing because three sides of the house had verandas which shut out much of the daylight.

  Sometimes Tess saw herself ordering drastic alterations. Unfortunately, money was always too tight for the dreams to take solid outline, so she had to make do with jars of flowers all over the place. You could always procure an armful of mountain roses or wild orchids from one of the native women in exchange for a pound or two of meal.

  Tess followed the Bentley tradition of living almost entirely on the barter system. She had to, for the bank posted off quarterly allowances to her brothers and complied with her father’s telegraphed requests for travellers’ cheques; what was left scarcely met the rent and other charges for the store. But so long as they remained solvent she was cheerful. Her father, who had never shared her mother’s preference for the two sons, had continually assured her: “You’re young yet, Tess, and Zinto isn’t a bad place for an adventurous girl to grow up in. Your day will come.”

  Tess wasn’t anxious for the d
ays to pass till her brothers were independent. In fact, she hadn’t a care in the world — till Dave Paterson came to Zinto.

  She saw his goods arrive in two closed vans, but the vans had driven away empty before the big sedan showed up. To her dismay the car stopped, and Dave came into the store.

  “Good afternoon,” he said, and let his grey eyes wander pointedly round the place. “Will you send me some supplies? Flour, sugar, tea, coffee, condiments, dried fruits and anything you’ve got in tins. A month’s supply,” he rattled off. “Where’s the male assistant?”

  She looked up at him in exasperation. “Need you jump on me the second you arrive? I’ve advertised, but there’s hardly been time for replies.”

  “Sure you haven’t had a few and torn them up?”

  “Don’t you ever trust anyone?”

  “Not women,” he said, “particularly the kind who masquerade behind slacks and cropped hair. In case you misunderstood me the other day —”

  “I didn’t,” she interrupted. “If I get only one applicant I shall engage him. He’ll probably cut my throat and make off with the cash-box, and give you something to think about.”

  “I’ve had that in mind, too.” Dave lifted a foot to a stool, and leaned his elbow on his knee. “Don’t engage anyone without my seeing him first and knocking into him what’ll happen if he misbehaves. And I’ll also arrange his sleeping quarters.”

  As he went out he gave her a sharp little smile. That week-end Tess had five letters; an affectionate note from her father, a few dutiful lines from her elder brother, and three applications for the job she had advertised. Two of the latter were pencilled on scraps of paper, and she flicked them into the waste-box. The third, written in a small pointed script on white bond, she turned about and read twice.