The Reluctant Guest Page 3

  For dinner that evening, Aaron used steak which he tenderized with a murderous-looking slat of wood that had about thirty nails sticking out of one end of it, small potatoes, dried-up peas from the garden, a few yellow gem squash, a tin of fruit and a box of wheat biscuits.

  The table looked fairly festive. Ann had found a white cloth and two brass candlesticks, and by careful searching she had also discovered some precocious pear blossom on the edge of the orchard. She rubbed the dusty look from a couple of candles and fitted then into the holders, arranged the pear blossom in a clay vase at the centre of the table, and carefully set three places. The table was ready, vegetables were cooking and the steak awaited the sound of Theo’s wheels.

  Ann began to palpitate. Her thoughts skipped back a few hours, to the night on the train. Wakeful, she had wondered about Theo, felt first excited and happy and then a little frightened ... then happy again. Only her parents knew that she had never before been so friendly with a man as she had been with Theo, during those two weeks he had persuaded her to spend wallowing in the delights of Cape Town. And even her parents hadn’t guessed how uplifting she had found her first experience of being almost in love. She stood at the window looking out into the darkness, and recalled those evenings when they had sped along between vineyards and orchards, halted on a headland and listened to the sea, laughed together and learned about each other. Her mother had said, wisely, “You’re in love with the idea of love, aren’t I you, Ann? It’s not just Theo—it’s the whole thing, opening out in front of you. You’re a bit late about it, you know, dear!”

  Ann remembered her own response: “I want it to take a long time to happen. Is that silly?”

  Her mother had laughed. Neither of them had thought much about Theo as a person till the letter from Elva had arrived. He had simply been a delightful episode that left a blank, and might or might not have repercussions. Now Ann thought of him almost as a refuge; which was queer. Theo wasn’t the bulwark type.

  Elva came down into the room. She wore a powder blue silk frock, white studs in her ears and flat white sandals. Her hair was again drawn back into a wheaten knot, but she had left it a little looser, to form a wave just above the brow. She had used lipstick and a trace of powder, and the effect was good.

  “It’s after seven,” she commented. “He should be here soon.” Then she looked at the table. “My, oh my! He’ll know it was you. I haven’t had a flower in the house for ... for years.”

  Why the hesitation, Ann wondered. Then she rebuked herself. She was getting hypersensitive, noticing everything and making trifles important. Nerves, she supposed.

  They were getting in the way of everything. Then, quite suddenly, they heard the sound they were listening for. The crunch of tires on gravel, the final braking and cutting out of the engine. Without knowing it, Ann had gone paper-white. She stood very still, her , hand tight upon the back of a chair as she watched the door.

  There was a sound on the wood, the door opened and Storr Peterson came in. For several seconds he stood there, his gaze travelling over the two women in a rapid summing up before it rested on the bowl of blossom. Then he came right in.

  “Sorry, girls,” he said, “but you’ve got yourselves keyed up for nothing. Theo won’t be here tonight.”

  In her offhand tones, Elva said, “I don’t get keyed up over Theo. What’s happened to him?”

  “A minor accident. He just telephoned through to my place. Seems he helped with assembling the tractor and sprained his wrist. He thought he hadn’t better drive till some of the pain has gone, and I told him to hang on at Wegersburg till he felt he could drive straight through, even if it took two or three days.” He looked straight at Ann, said laconically, “Bad luck, Miss Calvert, but it could have been worse.”

  There seemed to be a double meaning in the last phrase, but Ann did not trouble to work it out. She felt the tenseness go from her limbs, but her throat was strangely dry. She moved slightly, so that there was no need to look his way.

  Elva said, “We’ve got dinner for three on the go. Like to join us, Storr?”

  He hesitated. “Yes, I would. We’re not running too smoothly yet over at the house and I was going down to the hotel in Belati West for dinner. If you like, I’ll go back for a bottle of wine.”

  “Yes, do that. I’ll tell Aaron to get cooking.”

  Storr gave Ann an indolent smile. “You can go with me to hold the bottle—save it rolling about.”

  He seemed to be the sort of man that one obeyed simply because it was the least trouble. Ann went out into the cool darkness, got back into the seat she had occupied this morning and sat silent while he reversed and drove down through the orchard. He drew up in front of his own huge dwelling, murmured that he wouldn’t be long and went up the steps and between the pillars into a lighted porch. He disappeared, was gone for a few minutes before he was back in the porch, and closing the door. He held the bottle in a clean tea-cloth, and as he slid back behind the wheel he passed it to Ann.

  “It’s dusty. Mind your frock,” he said.

  She murmured something, and thought he would start up and drive round the lawn. But he sat back and said calmly, “You didn’t ask whether Theo had sent you his love.”

  “I was too surprised to think of it. Did he?”

  “Not in so many words. He asked if you’d arrived and wanted to know what you thought of the place. I told him you looked puzzled and wary.”

  Ann was nettled. “That wasn’t necessary!”

  “It was true.” Then, surveying her interestedly, “Your color is a bit healthier now. When I walked in this evening I thought you were going to pass out. You expected Theo just then, didn’t you?”

  “Naturally,” she said stiffly.

  “Amazing,” he remarked in those infuriating conversational tones. “I’ve heard about the effect of love on the young, but I’ve never seen it so close. If I were you, I’d grow out of that stage before consenting to get married; otherwise you’ll be at a disadvantage for the rest of your life.”

  “What can you know about that?” she said shortly.

  “From experience? Nothing at all. But you see it happening all the time. In marriage there seems to be one who is loved and one who does the loving. I’d hate to be the second one.”

  “Perhaps that’s because you’re not capable of it.”

  “Possibly,” he conceded. “On the other hand, I’d be quite capable of sustaining a marriage in which the woman did the loving, so long as she was sensible about it. I can’t bear a woman who clings.”

  “You’ve an outsize ego, haven’t you?”

  “I wouldn’t admit that. I’m just a realist about marriage. Love happens to only a few people, thank heaven. The rest either give in to infatuation or they marry from a simple biological urge. When I marry...”

  “Good lord,” she broke in coolly, “are you really going to give some woman the privilege of becoming your wife?”

  His smile was white in the darkness. “You can be quite nasty in defence of romance, can’t you? Is Theo your first?”

  “Is it important?”

  "It is—to you. First love knocks all the sense out of a woman and she’s left just a shivering bundle of feelings. I had a cousin who got it badly around your age. She didn’t marry the guy, but later on she married someone else. She has twins now—frightful little skellums of four. She’s the one who’s loved, and she likes it.”

  “How nice.”

  He laughed. “You can’t take it, can you? It’s that English upbringing. There are plenty of Englishmen in Cape Town. Why didn’t you go for one of them?”

  “Why haven’t you yet fallen for a South African woman?” she countered.

  “But I have—several times. Not very far, but I’ve fallen. That’s what I mean about not wanting to be the one who loves. You don’t have to get it very badly to discover that it’s a messy business and a trap.”

  “Then why even contemplate marriage?”

  He
smiled cynically. “I don’t, very often. But I’m thirty-three, and this place”—with a wave of his hand at the big white house—“has been in the family for a hundred and forty years, father to son. I had a Dutch grandmother and she gave the place atmosphere.”

  Again that word. Ann was beginning to distrust the most ordinary syllables from this man. “So you’ll marry someone suitable and not bother too much about loving her?”

  “She’ll get a fair deal,” he said easily, and started the car. They were halfway along the lane through the orchard when he remarked, “If you’re wise, you’ll get Theo out of your system. You’re definitely Cape Town suburbs, with a modern shopping centre round the corner and city lights just a car ride away. No criticism intended—we’re all made differently.” Then he glanced at her lap and said with a mock-apprehensive nod, “That’s an ominous way you’re gripping the neck of the bottle. Maybe you’re not so quiet and inoffensive as you look.”

  Ann didn’t try to find the answer. She fought down the unfamiliar surge of fury and tilted her chin, away from him. They drew up in front of the smaller house and she slipped out on to the path before he could reach her door. It was only a few paces into the living room.

  Elva looked round from placing a dish on the table. “Got it? Will it be cold enough?”

  “Straight from the cellar,” he said. “I don’t suppose you have any ice, anyway.”

  “No, our fridge never gets that cold.”

  Ann went off and washed her hands, waiting till she heard Aaron carrying food into the living room before she returned to the others. They sat down and ate, Elva put questions about Storr’s Continental tour, and he related a few incidents. Elva absorbed it all, greedily, said she had always felt she could settle anywhere if she had one good spell of travelling first.

  Ann watched and listened. They knew each other well, these two; there was a bond of race and friendship between them, and tonight Elva was showing her happier side. Pink showed through her weathered tan, life was in the mid-blue eyes.

  As they finished coffee, Storr looked at his watch. “Afraid I do have to go down to the hotel in Belati. I picked up a few loose ends this morning and promised I’d look in this evening. Why don’t you two come along with me?”

  Elva looked obliquely at Ann. “I’d like it, Storr.”

  Ann said quickly, “I spent last night in the train—I’m a little tired. If you don’t mind, I’ll go straight to bed.”

  No one tried to dissuade her. Elva dropped a scarf about her shoulders, Storr went through and locked up at the back, then slipped the catch on the front door so that it would lock behind them.

  “Sleep well, Miss Calvert,” he said pleasantly, but with a look of cool amusement in his eyes. “And don’t worry. We’re all quite human at Groenkop.”

  What did the beastly man mean by that, Ann asked herself, when the estate car had gone. An unfeeling type, she thought, and a little dangerous into the bargain. More than a little dangerous if one were weak about him, but she, Ann Calvert, need show no weakness in whatever dealings she might have with Storr Peterson. If she could avoid seeing him entirely so much the better.

  She went into the strange bedroom and began to undress. It was very quiet, except for the chirping of a few night insects, and she stood near the window for a while, thinking of the small house at Newlands, where her mother was now completing her packing for the cruise. For a long moment Ann wished intensely that she were going with her parents; it might even have been better to stay at home and use the beaches. But she had taken on this visit to Groenkop and had to see it through. At best, she could only leave a few days before her month was up.

  She got into pyjamas, stood in the centre of the room and silently but sternly rebuked herself. She was disappointed because Theo was absent; so what? He’d be here in a day or two, cheerful and earless—the best of companions. As for the big dark Peterson man...

  But before she could decide how he might be obliterated from her consciousness, Ann was thinking of the way he had looked at Elva when he had first seen her this evening. Comprehensively? Appreciatively? Ann wasn’t sure. She only knew that if Storr Peterson was considering the girl as a possible mate, she wouldn’t be in Elva Borland’s shoes.

  So he had decided to be the one who was loved. Cold-bloodedly and with superlative self-assurance, he would choose someone who’d make a good mistress of Groenkop and dole out just as much of the “messy business” of love as he happened to need. Lord, how she would like to see the man slip up!

  With unaccustomed force, Ann punched the pillow into shape and flung herself down on the bed. After which she smiled determinedly at the ceiling and thought about Theo.

  CHAPTER TWO

  IT was eleven miles into the town of Belati West, and on a horse it took exactly three minutes to lope through the main street and find oneself on the road out to the north. Which proves that Belati was dorp-size and unexciting. However, the tiny town was a farming centre as well as the shopping district for a wide area, and the hotel was mildly prosperous, the stores full of goods, if uncompetitive. Any morning you could see Africans dawdling into the shops and out again, but it was generally at the weekends that the farmers’ wives, in their dusty, modern cars, left lists here and there, visited the bank, took morning tea at the hotel and collected the ordered goods in time to return to the farm before lunch.

  Elva Borland, however, was no farmer’s wife, or sister. She and Theo were smallholders, and because neither had assumed responsibility for the ordering, either was apt to amble into town at any time to collect a bag of seed or a box of groceries. Normally, of course, they used their own old ranch wagon, but on the morning following Ann’s arrival there was no wagon to use; so the two women trotted down into town on the horses, caused a faint stir among the men who were already congregating in the hotel veranda, and tied up outside the dim little store opposite.

  Elva waved carelessly across at acquaintances, said to Ann, “Some of these sheep-farmers don’t work at all themselves. Can’t blame them, I suppose, but monied folk do make one a little sick.”

  “They don’t affect me that way,” Ann answered. “If I were a man I’d be happier working than talking shop ... or sheep, all the time with other men who had nothing to do.”

  “That’s crazy. They talk shop because they like it. I’d take easy money if I could get it. Plenty of cash is the answer to everything.”

  “Not quite, but we won’t argue. Do we go in here?” The shop smelled of paraffin and oranges and rotting grapes. A buxom woman in a green overall took Elva’s order, handed over a bag of flour and a few packages and said she would send up the bag of meal. The two girls came out into the sunshine, and found a man of about thirty taking an interest in the horses. He was thickshouldered and only slightly above average height, his hair was dark red, his face a little lined and leathery but ruggedly attractive; his smile, Ann decided, was the most obviously genuine she had seen for a long time.

  “Morning, Piet,” Elva said, in her usual abrupt fashion. “Ann, this is Piet Mulder—his parents are Hollanders. He farms the other side of Belati.” Then to the man: “Ann Calvert is Theo’s fiancée.”

  Ann had no time to refuse this before the man half bowed, very politely, and greeted her in tones which were guttural, but pleasantly so. “It is good to know you, Miss Calvert. It is good for Theo that you are here.”

  “In fact it is good,” said Elva. “Theo’s away in the wagon, so we’re riding.”

  “You’re too independent to ask a favor of me. I would have brought your provisions, Elva.”

  “You’re so far away. Why are you in town this morning?”

  “A boy was sick. I’ve left him with the doctor.”

  “You could have sent your mother with him.”

  “The Ouma herself is not too well. It was not convenient for me.” He paused. “Will you and Miss Calvert come over to the hotel and have tea or a drink with me?”

  “I don’t think so. With T
heo away we’re rather busy.”

  “Perhaps I could help?”

  Elva shrugged, turned towards the grey horse. “We’re not overburdened. Don’t bother.”

  Ann heard herself saying swiftly, “But you do need a man to look at that gate, Elva. Perhaps if Mr. Mulder isn’t too busy this afternoon...”

  The young man said eagerly, “Of course! I’ll come at about three.”

  He apparently knew better than to offer Elva a hand up into the saddle. He stood back as they mounted, smiled his slow smile and called, ‘Tot siens! I’ll see you at three.”

  For some reason, Elva kept ahead on the way back to Groenkop, but at the sagging gate Ann came level, and there was no question of riding fast along the potholed lane. But Ann did not speak till they had dismounted at the back of the house, and were carrying the provisions into the kitchen.

  Then she asked, “What on earth made you tell that man I’m engaged to Theo? It isn’t true at all.”

  Elva shrugged. “It never matters what you tell Piet. He doesn’t talk about our business.” She paused, while shoving a packet of bacon into the fridge, then said, “You shouldn’t have mentioned the gate. I don’t want him here.”

  “He seems awfully nice and anxious to please.”

  “What of it?”—in blunt tones. “I just don’t want him here now that Storr’s back.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know there were angles to it.”

  “There’s only one angle. Piet Mulder and I have been friends for a long time and he’s occasionally helped here. He’s good and kind, and I’ve been glad of him, but he isn’t anyone—not even a small-time sheep farmer. He has a little general farm—it’s a model of its kind, but I detest the place. I also detest his mother ... and when Piet’s servile I detest him, too.”

  “It seems rather a lot of hate to fling around.”

  “When you’ve had my sort of life,” said Elva, “you know exactly what you’d go for, if you could. Don’t think I’ve been hard up for a man. I haven’t.”