Brittle Bondage Read online

  The final room was Thea’s. Venetia hesitated just inside, recalling all that Blake had told her about his sister during the drive from Bondolo this morning. His tone had been non-committal.

  “At one time Thea and I understood one another very well,’ he’d said. “Some years ago she left home and took up nursing, but after our parents died I practically refurnished the house, persuaded her to give up nursing and settle at home, and for a long while it seemed to work. Then things happened.”

  It hadn’t occurred to Venetia that his pause might have been more than merely reflective.

  He had continued: “There was a love-affair—one of those abortive things that a woman of her age and type should have taken in her stride and forgotten. Normally she had plenty of sense, but after that she cleared off to Durban, and for the last eighteen months she’s been a sister in one of the hospitals there. She’s only thirty, but I’ve a nasty feeling that she’s cut the word ‘marriage’ out of her dictionary. She’s just giving everything to her work.”

  Later he had added: “You’ll get on well with Thea. She’s sophisticated, but it’s a comfortable kind of sophistication—a repudiation of sentimentality.”

  Venetia was young enough to have preferred a gentle, homely sister-in-law who might teach her all the things of which she was beginning to realize herself so starkly ignorant.

  Firm footsteps and the thud of a door brought her into the corridor.

  “Sorry to have been so long” said Blake from the hall. “Devil of a lot of work seems to have piled up. Familiarizing yourself?”

  “Yes. It’s a lovely home, Blake. I like the idea of living in a house with no stairs.”

  “Had tea?”

  “I ought to have asked you that,” she reproached herself. “When I’ve got over the strangeness I will try to be a good housewife. Let me make you some tea now.”

  “It’s not one of my vices.” He smiled down at her. The air is cooling off outside. How about a knock-up on the court?”

  “I’d love that.”

  “Nip along for your racquet and shoes.”

  When she rejoined him, he clipped her racquet with his own against his side, linked a careless arm in hers and drew her down the garden path to the gate in the tall hedge of luxuriant golden bignonia. They emerged into a hard court enclosed by wire-netting and partly shaded by old mango trees in which canaries chittered and the ever present weaver-birds constructed their ingenious nests. Blake spun his racquet, won, but chose the sunny end.

  Today he set the pace, a leisurely one which, nevertheless, brought sweat to her temples and made her pant. She did well, but was no match for a hard-thewed man and soon he collected the balls and vaulted the net to her side.

  Critically he looked her over, and quietly he said: “You’re not quite fit enough for tennis—I can see that now. You aren’t going to be silly, are you, Venetia? If you agree with everything I propose out of some stupid sense of gratitude I shall get blazingly angry. I won’t have gratitude.”

  Her lids lowered. “I did want to play.”

  “No—you wanted to please me, and that’s something I refuse to tolerate. In your way you’re putting as much into this partnership as I am and eventually a great deal is going to depend on you. You’ve got to realize that from the start.” His voice deepened, and slightly hardened. You must alter your earlier conception of me. I can’t go on till the end of time being your big brother or an agreeable cousin.”

  “I didn’t intend to disappoint you...”

  “You haven’t.” He dabbed her brow dry with his handkerchief and kept his head averted above hers. “Your grief for your father is still too new to allow much room for other things, but they’re there, Venetia—very much so. Our marriage has to be a success. I’m sure you appreciate the importance of absolute truth between us?”

  “Of course. I won’t fail you, Blake.”

  The hint of tenseness in the atmosphere eased. He gave a light tug at the back of her hair.

  “Fail me! What’s on your mind now?”

  “Nothing, only...”

  “Only what?”

  “Well,” hesitantly, “if I gave up my previous conception of you all at once, you’d become a stranger, and there’d be no place for me at Bondolo.”

  “But you already feel there is a place for you” he stated unequivocally.

  At the steps he halted. “I told Mosi to spread himself in preparing dinner. Wear your prettiest frock. After all,” with a teasing smile, “this is our wedding-day, and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t leave a sweet taste.”

  “You’re so good to me, Blake.”

  “Make the most of it, then—it can’t possibly last. I always end up by spanking my women.”

  “For nothing at all?” she said, smiling. “That sounds brutal.”

  “For backchat,” he told her, with an unwonted edge of cynicism. “Go in and have a rest. We dine at seven.” With a murmur of assent she took her racquet from him and went to her room. Blake at Bondolo was a much more complicated person than Blake at Umsanga. Perhaps happenings on the plantation during his absence had displeased him, or he might be wishing, as she was, that their first few days together were over, and a routine established between them.

  She bathed and dressed in a crocus-blue dress bought a couple of days ago in Durban. Blake had seen it folded in its tissue-lined box and remarked that the colour was girlish and he hoped the style wasn’t.

  At six-thirty she softly made her way to the lounge. It was empty, but a wrought-iron standard lamp cast a saffron circle which drew a coppery glint from the dusky damask. On a low table near the chesterfield a silver tray of drinks had been set. Venetia handled one of the winking crystal glasses, and had just leaned forward to relinquish it when Blake entered. He wore a light grey suit she hadn’t seen before, and his smile had charm. He touched her shoulder in passing.

  “The blue suits you,” he said. “You knew that or you wouldn’t have chosen the shade. It makes your eyes look like mountain pools—I expect you know that too?”

  “I’m willing to be convinced,” she said demurely, and drew a short laugh from him. To Venetia the lamp seemed to burn more brightly.

  He poured cocktails, gave her one and raised his own. His eyes over the rim were unreadable, but his tones were even.

  “To us,” he said, and, as if in afterthought tacked on “and our future.”

  As soon as his glass was drained he sat down beside her and produced his cigarette-case.

  She shook her head. “I still don’t smoke Blake.”

  “Time you began,” he said briefly, and slipped a cigarette between her lips. “Soon I shall have to invite friends to meet you. We’ll have to give a dinner-party.”

  “Will we? What sort of people are they?” she asked apprehensively.

  “Residents from round about. Professional men and their wives from Ellisburg—we didn’t come through the town on the way here, but it’s actually our nearest patch of civilization. And there are a few planters in the district. No one in the least frightening. They’ll all befriend you and consider me an exceptionally lucky man.”

  She lodged the cigarette upon the ashtray he had pushed near, and with her head bent, replied, “It’s what you think that matters, Blake.”

  He turned it off with mockery. “You’re learning fast my child. With an obedient wife at my side I anticipate a life of extreme felicity.”

  Dinner passed smoothly—Blake managed that. Afterwards they sauntered in the strongly-scented night, and he related incidents from his boyhood when he had lived on a wattle farm not far from here. He made her try another cigarette and this time she discarded only half of it. Soon after ten he said something about taking a last look round, and gave a slight pressure to her arm.

  Her heart beating rather fast, she looked up at him. He would kiss her now; she wanted him to. A kiss would obliterate all the accumulated awkwardness of the day and give them the correct start for tomorrow. One kissed a
brother good night, and Blake was closer than a brother ... at least, he would be one day. For a suffocating moment she thought, “Don’t let him kiss me as a lover ... not yet.”

  Then like a dull little blow it came to her that he had nodded, said good night, and moved away into the night. As she went to her room, her knees felt stiff and her chest was tight. She was tired, so tired that it was an effort to undress. For a time she sat in her wrap, remembering last night in her hotel bedroom and the extraordinary sensation of gladness which had kept her awake. Tonight she felt immature and confused, or it might have been exhaustion that made her doubt her ability to succeed as Blake’s wife. Of one thing, even in her weariness, she was certain. So long as he showed in small ways that he cared for her, very little could go wrong.

  Morning’s blaze and Mosi with the coffee-tray dispelled any lingering traces of yesterday’s hollowness. Venetia washed and dressed, flung wide her french window and breathed exultantly of the caressing, moisture-laden atmosphere. She was sitting on the veranda wall, framed in cascades of flame-coloured blossom, when Blake, tall and lean in khaki shorts and shirt, came along the path.

  His glance roved the brightness of her eyes and skin, the whiteness of her teeth.

  “Good morning,” he said. “There’s no need to ask if you slept well. I’ll bet it was a dreamless sleep, too. Are you hungry?”

  “A bit. But I’d like a turn in the garden before we eat.”

  “Swing your legs out and I’ll lift you down.”

  His breath came across her cheek, smoky and warm. He carried her clear to the flower-bed and steadied her on the path. The brush of his mouth against her eyebrow might have been accidental, but it started a cautious little bird singing in Venetia’s heart. Perhaps last night he had been afraid of alarming her. Things would go differently today, because they were both fresh and both eager for happiness.

  They breakfasted, and he took her to the stables and selected a mount for her. She rode with him through the trees to the river, and he promised that one day soon he would drive her the whole way round the estate. She saw the sugar being cut, trimmed and loaded, but he wouldn’t let her taste the raw cane.

  “It doesn’t agree with everyone,” he said. “You wait a while. No sense in risking enteritis.”

  Returning, they skirted an orchard of papaw, avocado, peach, banana and pineapple, but the only item he let her taste was a ripe banana, explaining that it was much safer to acclimatize oneself gradually to tropical fruits.

  As they left the stables, Mosi came to meet them with a telegram. Blake slit it open and spread the white square so that Venetia could read it with him.

  Amazed and delighted with your news. Longing to meet your wife. May I slip home for a couple of days next week. Love Thea.

  Venetia glanced up at him. “Your sister. How sweet of her to telegraph so quickly. I’m longing to meet her, too.”

  The pull of Blake’s mouth was enigmatic. “Hard lines for both of you,” he commented, “but you’ll have to go on longing. Thea’s not coming.”

  “But this is her home! If you refuse her she’ll conclude that I’m keeping her away.”

  “If she does, it can’t be helped,” he returned, with a shrug. “Time enough to have Thea up when we’re more settled.”

  “But, Blake...”—distress made her unwise; “she really has more right here than I have.”

  A faint compression narrowed his jaw. “You won’t get anywhere with that line of argument. I prefer her to remain away until she hasn’t. I’ll go ahead and write a reply to this, and send the boy off to Ellisburg with it.”

  “Please give her my love,” she called after him.

  “Don’t jitter,” he threw back. “You can rely on me to keep your end up.”

  By the time she had reached the house, Blake was ready to leave again.

  “There’s a message from Cedric Clarke—his farm is the next along the river. Cedric looks after things when I go away, and I haven’t had his report or thanked him yet. You needn’t come, but Margery is sure to ask us both over. Think you could face it by next Saturday?”

  “Whenever you say.”

  He smiled, and held her wrist for a moment, his thumb moving backward and forward over it. Then, with deliberation, he bent and dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose.

  “Go in and find a book and sit on the cool side of the veranda. So long, my pet.”

  Venetia turned to obey him. Her wrist and the end of her short nose tingled agreeably; in fact she was completely enveloped in a curious glow which had nothing to do with the weather.

  Pleasantly restless, she wandered in to the lounge and through again to the corridor. Maybe Blake’s suggestion would most profitably and quickly pass the interval till he turned up for lunch; perhaps he would stay with her all the afternoon. She had forgotten to ask whether he objected to her using the study, but it hardly seemed likely that he would; there were no books elsewhere. In any case, she didn’t intend to read in there.

  This morning the small room presented a busier appearance. Some letters and notes lay on the blotter of the desk, weighted by a piece of pure coral, and a couple of books had been left in the seat of the chair. They hadn’t been there when she came in yesterday, and Venetia wondered when, since their arrival, Blake had found time to read. Perhaps last night, before bed. He might have felt as uneasy as she had.

  She studied the titles: a history of Natal and an anthology of modern verse. Odd fellows, but one could imagine Blake according each his undivided concentration. She put down the history and leafed through the poems, recognizing old favourites of her own among them. A sheet of notepaper whispered from the pages and fluttered to the floor.

  Venetia retrieved it, saw the familiar slant of her father’s handwriting, and unconsciously pressed a hand to the sad-sweet pain in her heart. She had always seen Richard s letters to Blake and sometimes added a postscript. More often than not she had sealed them up and taken them to the post. Which one of those letters was it that had been deemed so worth keeping? Or had this one merely been shoved into the book and forgotten?

  She smoothed the sheet, and read. After the first few words her glance sped back to the date at the top. This had been written only two days before her father died ... and he must have got someone else to post it. Her breathing quick and unsteady, she went on reading.

  I am having to lie up with a cold, and I’m afraid I’m sleeping badly because of my anxiety over Venetia. It’s an old nightmare with me, Blake. Back in England, during my bouts of bronchitis, I used to pray frantically that nothing would happen to me till she was safely married. But we did have a few old friends there who might have seen her through. Here, she has no one, and I dread to contemplate what might befall if she were suddenly left alone in a strange country. Eighteen is very young, and in some respects Venetia is pathetically innocent. She has a thoroughly adult mind, as you know, but she’s missed all those bits of knowledge a mother imparts.

  She likes you, and I’m sure she would do whatever you thought best for her. If the necessity should arise, will you watch over her and help her through the loneliness?

  I feel much easier now this is written, but please don’t introduce the subject in your letters to me. Venetia reads them ...

  Carefully, as if she were handling something old and priceless, she reinserted the letter between the leaves of the volume and placed the book upon the seat of the chair as she had found it, with the history of Natal obscuring it.

  For a long moment she could not move, then, mechanically, she came out, closed the door and crossed to her bedroom. Her breathing still played tricks, as though her lungs could not get enough air past the sharp obstruction in her throat, and her limbs felt weak and uncertain.

  Blake had gone over that letter many times; again last night he had conned it and doubtless questioned, now that he had her under his own roof, whether he had done the right thing. He had married her out of respect and loyalty to her father, and for the same re
asons he would make the best of the marriage; but one couldn’t fall in love at command. He knew that as well as she did ... probably better.

  How childish and absurd she had been to believe that a man of Blake’s years and experience would, of his own will, marry the nice youngster who happened to be Richard’s daughter! She visualized him scanning her own few bald lines acquainting him with her father’s death; his long speculation about it, the disagreeable realization of his position as a sort of guardian to Venetia Lindley, whom he had known for such a short time, and the philosophical resignation with which he had decided to “give her his name and the right to live at Bondolo.”

  Having made his decision, Blake would go ahead with it, firm in the belief that it was for her good—and that every man had to marry some time.

  What she could do about it, Venetia was, as yet, too shattered to analyse. She only knew that the last ten minutes had bitterly and remorselessly destroyed the last vestiges of her girlhood.

  CHAPTER THREE

  FOR the dinner-party which Blake had arranged, Venetia wore a new leaf-green dress with a low, square neckline and the waist drawn in at one side with a large, beaten-silver clasp. Her hair was slicked back from forehead and temples to fall naturally in her nape, and she used a dab of rouge beneath the light dusting of powder.

  Tonight was important. Blake’s unusual interest in the menu and wines were an indication of that; he had wanted to know all about her dress, too. Before she had gone off to the bathroom he had congratulated her on the table decorations.

  “No touch with flowers like a woman’s,” he had said teasingly. “The folk will sense your presence the minute they enter the hall and find those massive proteas on the table where the rubber plant used to be.”