Winds of Enchantment Read online

  She leaned against the veranda post, listening to the night noises all around. Then she heard a step, and knew at once that it was Nick’s. He came to her side, pulling his cigarette case from his pocket. “Smoke?” he extended the case, of scuffed buffalo-hide matching his lighter.

  “Not right now,” she said, her hands gripping the rail as she noticed the hardness of his chin, the haughty jut of his nose in the flare of his lighter. He snapped it shut, and inhaled deeply.

  “Going to scold me for running off with Madden?” she asked lightly, though that funny little nerve still jumped in her throat.

  “Like a child, you like your own way,” he said curtly, “and Madden can’t see farther than those cat’s eyes of yours. What do you think of Makai?”

  “It’s very rubbery, and you really could do with a few rose trees around this compound to try and quell the odour of rubber. Doesn’t it sicken you, Nick?”

  “I’m used to it—and it butters my bread.”

  “Delicious combination!” She gave a husky little laugh. “I’ve never known anyone quite like you, Nick. You remind me of a machine that works without fault, and has no feelings to break down the mechanism. You’re a bit inhuman, aren’t you?”

  “Thanks for the compliment, little one.” He laughed in his throat. “Are you comparing me with anyone in particular?”

  She thought of Steve, but somehow she didn’t wish to bring him into the conversation. Nick was in the mood to jeer, and she might defend herself with a reckless remark ... and she wasn’t quite ready yet to admit to feelings for Steve that went deeper than friendship.

  “I’m comparing you to everyone I’ve known,” she replied. “Even Bill is not quite the jungle fanatic that you are. Doesn’t this place ever bore you?”

  “I can’t let it bore me.” He sounded as though he spoke through clenched teeth. “To you I’m all work and latex, eh? Now you’ve seen me at Makai? Sorry you came?”

  “No—I’ve learned a lot. It’s been quite an experience.”

  She went down the steps, and he walked with her through the moonlight to the other house. She and Bill were heading back for Kanos in the morning, and after Nick had said goodnight and left her, she was aware of an odd feeling—a sense of foreboding or melancholy—shifting restlessly through her bones.

  Bill decided that he needed an assistant, and he asked Cliff Grey to take on the job. Cliff’s trading contract had expired and he was reluctant to return to England.

  The villa was now complete to the final rug and in a week’s time, when the staff was assembled, the Bradings would be moving in. Pat tried to feel excited at the prospect, but somehow that melancholy she had felt up at Makai had followed her to Kanos, and she buried herself in office work and tried to swamp depression in checking columns of figures, and answering the various letters that had accumulated during their absence.

  Bill was like a happy boy these days, and so pleased with the villa and the way trade was going that Pat made a real effort to look starry-eyed when they moved into their brand new home. It was spacious and cool, furnished in polished mahogany and the reliable wicker. Owing to the perpetual damp nothing was upholstered, but loungers and chairs were heaped with gay cushions which could be aired easily and readily replaced. The ants and mosquitoes, mango-flies and tsetse were just as troublesome as down on the shore, and up here among the trees was the added menace of snakes.

  When they had been three weeks at the villa, Bill gave a house-warming party. The large lounge was converted into a reception room for the occasion, and a quintet from the club orchestra installed in a flower-screened corner. With the aid of Cliff—that young man of mysterious background who seemed to know such a lot about good food and wine—Pat arranged a worthy menu. She managed to procure caviare and fruit, and even knocked together a tasty fresh salad. Chicken and duck, with tinned new potatoes, melba a la Kanos, soft cheese and a rich Liberian coffee.

  Pat dressed in white. Just before the guests were due, Bill clipped a tiny bow of diamonds in her hair. “There, my pretty,” he smiled. “Like it?”

  “Mmm,” she reached up and kissed his leathery cheek. “Where did you buy it?”

  He winked. “You can get anything you want here if you know the way to go about it.”

  He certainly proved it that night. Turkish cigarettes and Cuban cigars, fine wines and liqueurs; charming mementoes for the ladies.

  It was after dinner, between dances, that Mrs. Ewan Reynolds sought out Pat. She was slim with a tired young face framed by cloudy fawn hair.

  “You have a lovely house, Miss Brading,” she said. “Tell me, is it true you lived in that little colony the other side of the wharves when you first came to Kanos?”

  Pat nodded frankly. “In the traders’ settlement. My father was a keen trader till he joined up with Mr. Farland.”

  “Is there so much money in trading?” Mrs. Reynolds glanced about her.

  “Not these days.”

  “Are you staying in Kanos?”

  “For a while.” Pat smiled. “I like Africa.”

  “Perhaps you’re built to stand it. Some are—but not many women. I shall be glad when my husband’s time is up.” Mrs. Reynolds gave a weary little smile. “I suppose you realize that your household is rather unusual? Have you any women friends in the town?”

  “None. I’m afraid I haven’t found the time to make any.”

  The other hesitated. “We must meet now and again, Miss Brading,” she said. “I’ll invite you to one of our bridge parties.”

  Pat didn’t play bridge, but she murmured an appropriate reply and knew that it would be some time before the wife of the Governor’s secretary made further overtures.

  Steve still wrote regularly, and one evening Pat mentioned him to her father. “He writes to say he’s coming out to see us.”

  Bill gave her a considering look. “Would you like that, kitten?”

  “I’ve always been fond of Steve,” she replied.

  “Well,” he said, “you’re only twenty. Look around a bit before you hook up with anyone. It’s a queer business, marriage, and the devil of a job to get out of once you’re in. It’s a good thing Steve came to his senses and got shot of that wax-lily of a Celia. She wouldn’t have given him more than a perpetual toothache with all that empty sweet-talk of hers. A man wants a sparring partner, not a sort of social orchid to deck his dining table.”

  “That’s a long speech for you, Bill.” Pat smiled affectionately at her father. “I’ll make do with you for the time being. Marriage can wait a while longer.”

  Bill regarded her from the depths of his chair, where he was smoking his old briar and filling the room with its pungent smoke. Pat was sitting atop a cushion like a pixie. “Have you missed Steve since you’ve been out here—it’s a full year, kitten?”

  “I—don’t know, Dad. I’ve never known him here, have I? He doesn’t belong here.” She looked distressed at the thought.

  “Don’t go worrying, kitten,” Bill gave her a wink.

  “You’ll know how you feel as soon as you see him again. Here, this will amuse you—they’re proposing me for the club.” He gave his rolling laugh. “That’ll make you a guest-member. I tell you, Pat, in a year or two Brading will be the best-known name in Kanos.”

  In the days that followed Pat enjoyed some social life. She rode with young club members, played tennis, and attended tea dances. It was as though she experienced a rare compulsion for company; as though to be alone would bring thoughts she was unable to bear just at present.

  Then on a brassy morning at the end of January, Bill, who had gone out an hour before, sent back a messenger with a note asking that his white suit be pressed before he returned for lunch. At midday he came in bubbling with high spirits.

  “There’s a liner at the bar,” he informed Pat. “They’ve a couple of baby elephants aboard and I had an invitation to go out and see them. Make yourself pretty and come along.”

  At three o’clock she accom
panied her father to the beach.

  “We’ll go in one of our own canoes,” he said, and yelled to a boy to bring one down to the water.

  It was wet and muddy inside—they nearly always were—and Bill said grumblingly that Pat couldn’t sit in her best bib and tucker in that mess. “You hang on,” he added. “Cliff will see that you get a clean one. I’ll stand in this!”

  His boys shoved off, and Pat cooled her heels impatiently as Cliff chivvied two more boys into draining and mopping another boat into some semblance of tidiness, while he sent to his own house for cushions.

  The richly verdured islands shone emerald against the metallic blue of sea and sky, the palms nodded gently. Crabs scuttled and delved in the silvery sand, a dog whined sleepily, and over all hung a shimmering, palpable haze.

  Pat stood very still, impatience suddenly gone. At this moment she knew she was captured ... her heart was in this strange and savage land. For her—and she knew it forcibly right now—the sun could never rise so excitingly anywhere as on Africa’s exotic shores and over its somnolent jungle. Spreading the bright dawn in swift strokes from one end of the bay to the other.

  Cliff came and stood beside her, looking down from under his tilted helmet. “You look pale.” His dark eyes brooded on her face. “Feeling the sun?”

  She shook her head. “Loving the sun,” she murmured.

  “You say that as if you mean it. Has all this got you as well?”

  “I think it has, Cliff. It’s a love-hate thing, isn’t it?” She gave him a thoughtful smile. “Sometimes I curse the heat and the flies, and I shudder at the thought of snakes, but right now the magical side of the coin has got me and I wouldn’t change places with anyone.”

  “Poor Pat.” His smile was ironical. “Welcome to the club.”

  They shook hands and laughed, there in the rich sun. Then the freshened-up boat was dragged to the water’s edge, the cushions arranged, and Pat was handed in by Cliff. One boy stood in the boat, ready with his pole, while the other pushed off and sloshed aboard just as they were turning into one of the channels between the banks.

  Pat could see her father’s figure astride in the other canoe. He waved back to her and she gave him a loving smile, though he was too far ahead to see it. His voice came to her over the water, a rollicking baritone singing one of the shanties that sometimes issued from the new bathroom. Pat gave a little laugh. Bill rather fancied himself in white. His thick figure was not ungainly, and the tough brown skin and rough red hair gave him a look of health and virility.

  His boat was looping between the sandbanks at an astonishing speed and she watched him sway and heard his laughter as he urged the boys to greater efforts. She knew he was promising them money, and presently one of her own boys asked hopefully: “We go quick—like Massa?”

  “No, thanks,” she answered. “If Massa’s not careful, he stick in mud.”

  A second later Bill’s canoe rollicked round a bend and tipped on its side. He lost his balance and smashed into the sea. Pat laughed.

  “The idiot!”

  She watched, waiting confidently for the red head to push up through the water ... but several seconds passed ... he had not yet come up. She stood up, sobered.

  “Faster!” she cried to her own boys. “For heaven’s sake—faster!”

  Other boats from the liner were making for the spot where Bill had disappeared. Pat’s heart began a frantic pounding against her ribs. “Bill, you idiot,” she whispered, “don’t play-act. I—I’m frightened, Bill, Bill ... Father ... please come up!”

  “Bill!” she screamed.

  Two long banks rose between herself and the mishap. Wildly she flung herself in the water, swam to the first eminence and clawed at the mud. In a desperate frenzy she dragged herself through it and slid down the other side into the next channel and thrust out, swimming strongly through the weed beds, small husky pants coming between her lips as with double her normal strength she struck through the water till her knees caught in the silt of the final bank. She struggled through the soft, yielding stuff, panting painfully now, her throat choked with grit and brine and fear...

  And then, from where she sprawled on top of the bank, she saw all the sad little boats and the shaking heads. His name died, somewhere low down in her throat, and she slid down, unaware, on to the mud.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE statuette of the Bantu woman stood on the coffee table in the lounge. Most visitors stopped to examine it and to exclaim over its weight. During those few days’ rest which Doctor Piers had ordered, Pat dully watched her sympathetic visitors come and go, the statuette affording them a kind of respite from her ravaged young face.

  Pat lay among divan cushions and wished they would all stop coming and leave her entirely alone with her grief. Shock, was the doctor’s verdict; extreme nervous shock, for which the only immediate remedy was rest. She had no wish to get up, no desire for anything or anyone.

  The third day, Cliff Grey came in. He looked down at her and away again.

  “You’re not bothered about work, I know, Pat, but I thought I’d just tell you that we’re carrying on as usual. Barker’s helping a bit and I’ve engaged another clerk. A boat leaves this afternoon—another is due tomorrow with hardware. Shall I trade it?”

  “Just as you like.” She didn’t care if he dumped the lot in the sea.

  His lined young face was distressed. “We’re just unloading a big consignment from Makai. There’ll be enough to make up the French order.”

  “All right—fine.”

  “Is there anything you want, Pat?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then I’ll be getting back.”

  Her eyelids drooped. Her arms lay slackly along the sides of her dress. For an hour she did not move.

  The boy brought in tea and biscuits. “I pour, missy?” he asked.

  “No.” It was a thread of sound between her dry lips.

  He slipped away and presently Elizabeth Piers came in, carrying a parcel. She smiled breezily, took off her hat and ran her fingers through her short dark hair. She was small and wiry, a little over thirty.

  “My husband says you may read,” she announced, “so I’ve brought you a couple of novels.” She broke off. “Oh—tea. May I have some? Boy, another cup!”

  She insisted that Pat drink a cup, after which she wandered round the room, admiring the rugs, the ornaments, and the furniture which Pat and Bill had chosen together. She talked of England, and of her small son who was at school there. Finally she asked: “Do you think you could sleep now?”

  “I could with a couple of tablets.” Pat wished the woman gone.

  “They’re only for the night. Try having a read—it may send you off. And I’ll drop in tomorrow. Goodbye, my dear.”

  Once more Pat closed her eyes, feeling a searing pain at the back of her eye sockets. She could hear the palms and the casuarinas whispering together, and the song of the mow-boy in the garden, the buzz of insects and the hoarse note of a bird—also the seductive murmur of the sea. The sea...

  A trickle of sweat coursed across her temple and into her hair.

  At a small sound her brow creased. She was so sick of visitors. She lifted her eyelids wearily.

  “I came as soon as I heard,” Nick said quietly from the foot of the divan.

  “Thanks,” she answered tonelessly.

  His face was stern and he needed a shave. He stood staring down at her, his hands dug deep into the pockets of creased slacks.

  “I ran into Mrs. Piers and she gave me details. It must have been frightful for you, Pat. I don’t quite know what to say.”

  “There isn’t anything.” Her eyes were dull with the tears she had been unable to shed; her heart was weighted with them.

  He gently shifted her feet and sat beside them. “You mustn’t grieve too much, child. Bill wouldn’t want that. It was a quick end, one to be envied.” Nick reached for the tips of her fingers. “Pat, I want you to know that you’re not alone.”r />
  “They all say that,” she stated, in a flat tired whisper.

  “I mean it. I know just how you’re feeling. Bill was rare.” As she winced, his grip tightened on her fingers. ‘You’ve got to face it—be able to speak his name and look at the sea that took him—It sounds hard, but it’s sane. Bill’s gone, and you’ve got to be grateful for having known him. He who loved life wouldn’t want you to lie here like this. D’you hear, Pat?”

  She turned her face to the window. “I wish I had been in the boat with him—we might have gone together.”

  “None of that talk, Pat!” He spoke firmly. “You’re letting Piers swamp you with his talk of nervous shock. He’s not used to patients of the Brading breed. As soon as you’re able, get busy doing something—anything. You’ll soon be well again. I’ll help you.”

  “How can you, at Makai?” she asked drearily.

  “I shall be needed here for a while, to look into the trading end.”

  “Cliff says the shipments are all in order.”

  “I’m staying, anyway. You and I have business to settle, but it can wait.” He gave her hand a final squeeze and released it. His mouth moved in the faintest of smiles. “I drove all through last night and this morning. Can I have a drink?”

  “Help yourself.”

  He poured a small neat whisky and swallowed it, then he turned to face her, tall and darkly tanned, not too noticeably fatigued by his long drive. “Did you notice I said I’d driven?” He quirked a dark, enquiring brow.

  “Along the new road?”