Portrait of Susan Read online

  “Perhaps I was.” Her head rose a little. “We had a small herb and flower garden in England. I used to watch it daily, and it was continually changing.”

  His grey eyes had a shrewd hard smile. “I think you may have borrowed some of its characteristics. You seem to be a little different each day, too.” He paused appraising her. “I believe I know what you were going to say a few minutes ago—that if you and Paul had a place of your own you’d be able to plan your own garden.”

  She broke off another seed-pod. “No charge for being ambitious; is there?” she said. “One does get tired of being always tied to property that belongs to someone else.”

  He stood there with his hands in his pockets, still studying her. Consideringly, he said, “I’m going to buy some land down-river and fill it with a dairy herd. I’ve already ordered some champion stock from Scotland, and I intend to go in for it in a moderately big way. I’m hoping Paul will shape up well enough to handle it on his own.”

  “Really?” She stared at him in astonishment. “Have you told him?”

  “He hasn’t done too well lately, so I’ve been putting it off.” He let out a brief sigh. “I wish that brother of yours were more even-natured and dependable. You seem to have his share of stability as well as your own.”

  “You implied just now that I’m changeable.”

  “So you are, but not in essentials. We’ll have to talk it over some time—the three of us.” He paused. “By the way, you seem to be settling down fairly well with Deline. May I take it that you’re no longer tearingly anxious to get out from under my roof?”

  Susan wasn’t quite sure how to answer; in fact, she wasn’t too certain of her own feelings in the matter. But it did occur to her, swiftly, that her actions could jeopardize Paul’s chances, and that David might purposely have told her of his dairy farming plan in order to force her, more or less, to please him in other respects.

  She said coolly, “One can become accustomed to almost anything, but I’d still prefer not to feel bound. I’m willing to carry on as we are for the time being, though.”

  “That’s big of you.” The glint in his eyes was half-amused. “Unconditionally?”

  “I’m in no position to make conditions.”

  “From what I’ve seen that wouldn’t stop you,” he said tersely. “Let’s be frank, shall we? What is it, exactly, that irks you?”

  She could have told the truth—that Deline was an unmitigated pain in the neck. But being blatantly honest with David Forrest about such a matter was hardly the way to get what one wanted. And what did she want, precisely? Paul’s independence, and for herself a satisfying life away from Willowfield. Was that all? Even in that moment, while he was awaiting her reply, it had a hollow ring.

  “Perhaps I haven’t settled as well as you think,” she said evasively, “but I’m trying. How long do you think Mrs. Maynton will stay in Rhodesia?”

  He shrugged. “We haven’t set any limits. I didn’t really know Deline till after she’d lost her husband, but friends of hers have told me that a couple of years ago she was an entirely different person—gay, vivid, plenty of pep. I’ve set myself the task of making her that way again.”

  Susan felt blood rush into her ears. “But you were a stranger to her,” she said, striving for steady tones. “The fact of your being her distant relative doesn’t make you responsible for her recovery.”

  He closed up. “No, it doesn’t. It wasn’t something I took on with very little urging, but as I’ve told you before—don’t assume too much.”

  “I’m not sure I know what you mean by that.”

  “No? Well, I’m not explaining. Possibly I’ve said more than I should, already. By the way, when Clive Carlsten shows up the atmosphere in the house is bound to change somewhat. He’s quite a good sort, but he may upset Deline. You might watch a little, see they’re not alone together very often.”

  She wanted to say, “My dear man, don’t fret yourself! Your precious Deline could handle anything male in any corner of the world.” But she knew it wouldn’t have gone down too well.

  So she asked, “When is Mr. Carlsten coming?”

  “He wasn’t sure. In his letter he said he’d send a telegram on his arrival in Johannesburg.” He nodded towards his car and the jeep on the drive. “Are you ready to leave?”

  “Yes, when I’ve washed my hands at the tap.”

  He went with her across the grass, stood back as she twisted the tap and a jet of water splashed the stones. Susan washed the soil from her hands and shook them, and he drew a clean handkerchief from his pocket and tossed it to her. Usually, she let the air dry her fingers, but today she dabbed them with the handkerchief, folded it and gave it back to him with a word of thanks. He went with her to the jeep and saw her seated behind the wheel.

  “You go first,” he said.

  “So that you can skim past me like the wind?”

  “I’ll stay behind you,” he said. Still holding open the door, he looked down at her dark trousered legs, shifted his glance to the narrow shoulders in the pink linen shirt, and lastly looking at the small proud face with the yellow lock drooping over one brow.

  “You’ve been shorn,” he commented. “With your hair like that you’ll have all the young fellows itching to ruffle it.” A pause, then he asked, “Do you have much trouble with the men?”

  “Almost none. Bill always says—rather regretfully—that I’m too much the sweet sister.”

  “Bill Knight?” He can’t be much older than you are. Is he your chief dancing partner?”

  “No, he’s a terrible dancer but good fun.”

  “To you,” he said, his mouth twisted in a smile that was half-cynical, “I must seem annoyingly full of years.”

  “Not years, exactly,” she responded, her thumb on the starter. “But you certainly belong to a type that’s incomprehensible to the young and frivolous.”

  “You’re not frivolous—only young and a little too independent. Do you find it difficult to like what you don’t understand?”

  She smiled. “I find it almost impossible. I do see that you might be likeable, though, in certain circumstances.”

  “What sort of circumstances?”

  She knew he was baiting her, and answered accordingly. “I’ll have to think that one out and let you know. Are you ever in a festive mood?”

  “Yes, when there’s a reason.”

  Her voice lost its lightness, became studiously matter-of-fact. “Don’t you think your return to Willowfield reason enough? Most men in such a position would have entertained all their old friends within a week of settling.”

  He straightened. “It’s the obvious thing to do, but I was tied by Deline’s illness. She and I have already decided to give a party as soon as she’s fit enough.” He closed the jeep door with a snap. “On your way, little one. You needn’t speed for my benefit.

  But somehow, Susan had to wrest all she could from the jeep; it was the only way to gain temporary relief from a sudden painful oppression. Even so, she gave three parts of her mind to the words which had passed between herself and David, and naturally her thoughts slipped into the groove which held David and Deline. She pictured him in England, meeting Deline for the first time, being struck all of a heap by the spuriously delicate beauty, and later forming a determination to make her well. He would want a woman as vital and pulsing as himself...

  Sternly, Susan pulled herself up. She reminded herself that in England Deline had been newly bereaved; David would not have thought of her in an intimate way, or only vaguely. It was here, in Rhodesia, that his ideas about her had taken firm shape. Yet he had come back meaning to settle, and it had probably been for Deline’s sake that he dropped his work in England.

  His klaxon raucous, he flashed by. The silver grey car slowed and took up the centre of the road, except when an oncoming car needed room to pass. Susan took it that he was reprimanding her for dangerous driving, and hardly cared. This was one of those moments when, with heart
and soul, she loathed the big, self-assured Rhodesian.

  Strangely, the very next day Deline showed an awakening interest in her surroundings. Instead of house slacks she wore a smart amber-colored frock which deepened the tones of the light red hair and contrasted queerly with the china blue eyes, and apparently by pre-arrangement David came back at eleven and they went out together. Susan lunched with Paul, worked with the boy in the cottage garden for a while, and then returned to the farmhouse to iron some of Deline’s things which she had washed this morning.

  Deline came back for tea, spoke languidly and happily about the morning’s trip to a neighboring farm, and asked whether Susan didn’t think her skin tones were improving.

  It was rarely, thought Susan, watching Deline at the black-wood-framed mirror in the hall, that one came across a woman so completely absorbed with herself. Extraordinary, too, that neither David nor Paul seemed aware of it. They, of course, saw Deline only at her best; for the men she was always freshly made up and wearing a different get-up, and even if the smile she gave them was tired it never lacked a welcome. There was no doubt at all that her marriage had taught her a great deal.

  The following afternoon Wyn Knight called at the farm. Susan had just ordered tea, and it was no trouble to fetch an extra cup and more biscuits.

  “I can’t remember the last time you called in,” she told Wyn delightedly, after introducing her to Deline. “We haven’t met at all since the house-warming at the cottage. How’s the tennis?”

  “Whizzo,” Wyn answered breezily. “How about you and Mrs. Maynton coming over for a game tomorrow?”

  “I don’t play, these days,” said Deline gently. “Perhaps I shall take it up again when I’m stronger.”

  Wyn could be both deliberately and unwittingly ingenuous. “A mild game might help to set you up. I think it’s a mistake to sit around when you feel weak.”

  “I don’t imagine you’ve ever been weak,” observed Deline with the slightest trace of acid. “When I feel fit enough to play tennis I shall have a try-out here, on David’s court.” This, seemingly, closed the subject, for she asked, “Aren’t you the girl I saw talking to Paul the other afternoon? You were both down on the road, and appeared to be rather heated.”

  “Oh, that.” Wyn’s brief laugh was less spontaneous than usual and she flashed an injured glance at Susan because she had been watched. “When we were younger my brothers and I evolved a series of codes, and I seem to be the last to grow out of them. I spoke to Paul that afternoon in the Knight backslang and he called me childish. So we had a spat.”

  Deline nodded, suavely. “Did it cure you of childishness?”

  Wyn shook back the short black hair. Her dark eyes looked puzzled; patently, she had never before met Deline’s pleasantly ruthless types of womanhood. “Why should it?” she asked bluntly. “If people don’t like me as I am, it’s just too bad. One can only be oneself; one can’t be everything.”

  “True. But if the person one is doesn’t satisfy those one would most wish to please, it is only common sense to make some changes. I assume you do wish to please Paul?”

  Wyn colored and her lower lip stuck out. Susan would have liked to insert something soothing, but Wyn was staring rather hard at the other woman’s pale features and she obviously had ready a retort which would not be withheld.

  “Not if it means buttering him,” she said flatly. “I’ve an idea that Paul is changing a little himself to please someone, and I can’t say it makes him more attractive to the rest of his friends.”

  Susan did break in this time, with some hustle. “Mrs. Maynton didn’t mean anything personal, Wyn, and I’m sure Paul would be horrified if he knew we were discussing him like this. Have some more tea?”

  Wyn was naturally sunny-natured and not too deep. Smiling apologetically at Susan, she drank her tea and described, with blundering good intentions, a polo match she had seen a couple of weeks ago. As soon as she politely could she stood up and said she must go.

  Susan went out with her to the small car, promised to turn up for tennis the following afternoon even if she had to use the gelding.

  Wyn sighed, kicked the front tire of the car and nodded back at the house. “I’m not much for tea-visiting,” she said, “but I had to come when Paul wasn’t about just out of curiosity. Your brother’s smitten with that elegant cold fish—did you know?”

  Susan suppressed a qualm; Paul must have talked unwisely at the club. “I don’t see how he can be,” she said. “They don’t meet very often.”

  “I’m not saying he hopes for anything from it,” said Wyn, in her forthright fashion, “but she’s become his measure for other women. Paul used to be decent”—high praise from Wyn—“but now he’s a creep.”

  Susan laughed to mask her disquiet. “He’s no different, really. Long before Mrs. Maynton came he thought it was time you matured. He’s always liked you so much better than any of the other girls that he took more notice of the things you did and said. Don’t fight with him, Wyn.”

  Wyn hunched her shoulders. “I won’t—unless he compares me with her again. If he does, I’ll do some loud comparing myself!”

  After she had gone Susan walked for a while in the garden. There were streaks of white against the metallic blue of the sky, and the tops of the gum trees were giving their familiar dry rustle. The moonflowers in the border under her bedroom window were wilting, but she could not bring herself to the task of staking and watering them. She needed some gigantic occupation that would demand her whole attention; failing that, she would rather walk till she was tired.

  It was good to play tennis at the Knights’ next day, wonderful to be teased by the boys and yelled at by Wyn for a rotten player. But it was not quite so enjoyable to arrive back at the farm and find David lobbing balls over his own net for Deline. Nor could Susan help clenching her hands in her lap when, over dinner, Deline expatiated upon her “first steps to complete recovery.”

  “I feel so well, David,” Deline said, glowing, “It’s this lovely farm—and you, of course. I really don’t know what I’d have done without you.”

  “You’re trying hard yourself,” he said. “That’s what counts. Now that you’ve started perhaps you and Susan can have a game now and then.”

  “Susan leaves me most afternoons, you know,” Deline said, with forbearing sweetness, “but Paul might give me a knock up, whenever he’s home early enough.”

  “He could,” David agreed, without much expression, “but he’s a little thoughtless and might overtax you. Now that you’ve taken the right road we don’t want you falling back.”

  Susan’s glance happened to collide with Deline’s at that moment; veiled green eyes caught in the flashing triumph of the blue ones which were so worldly wise and without kindness. It had suited Deline to translate his reply into jealousy; also, she found it bliss to know that Susan had heard it.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE telegram from Clive Carlsten had been sent off the night before, soon after his arrival in Johannesburg. An agent, it said, had arranged his passage to Salisbury in a private plane, and if all went well he would touch down at about noon. The telegram reached Willowfield around ten, Susan signed for it and Deline, scarcely moving in the green canvas swing, opened it. There was a long moment of silence.

  Then Deline said, very coolly, “I must speak to David. Are they using the jeep?”

  “Paul has it. I can ride up with a message for you.”

  Deline ignored this offer. “Is David’s car in the garage?”

  “Yes, but I wouldn’t dare drive it.”

  “You must. Get it out now.”

  “He’ll be angry.”

  “Not with me,” stated Deline indolently. “I’ll take the responsibility. Be quick.”

  Susan had never handled anything with such ridiculous care. After the jeep, the car seemed so immensely powerful, so swift to respond to the least touch; it was like being in charge of high explosive. With Deline beside her, she drove out
on the main road and round by the Willowfield fence for two or three miles till they reached the iron double gates and the rough red road used by the lorry. Susan opened the gates and drove along the track, eventually turning off towards the tobacco lands.

  David was there, checking over the boss-boy’s figures, but Susan was too intent upon pulling up smoothly to notice his first expression. While he was helping Deline from the car she slid from behind the wheel and stood out on the path, conscious of a chill of sweat at her temples. Driving the limousine had been quite an ordeal.

  In low tones Deline explained to David, and she ended, “Will Clive expect you to meet him in Salisbury?”

  “Naturally. I’ve just about time to make it, and you must go with me.”

  The husky voice trembled. “David, I honestly don’t think I can. Clive just doesn’t care any more about my feelings.”

  David answered reasonably. “You say you don’t care about his, so that makes you quits. Let’s behave normally in this. Do you feel you can stand the trip? You’ll remember the road is fairly rough.”

  “The trip wouldn’t bother me, but Clive will be at the end of it. David, I’ve willed myself not to think too much about it, but I must admit I’m horribly afraid.”

  “Don’t be absurd. You’ve handled Clive for years. What have you to be afraid of?”

  She threw out her hands in a gesture of helplessness, and smiled tremulously. “All right, I won’t be a coward so long as you’re there.” A pause. “Darling, did you mind my asking Susan to bring me here in your car?”

  His smile was a little grim. “I wondered whose idea it was.” He looked across the bonnet. “How did you find it, Susan?”

  “Dynamic,” she answered briefly. She was cold with the knowledge that Deline had intended all along to go with him to Salisbury, that the histrionics were part of her pose.

  “I’ll drive you both back,” he said. “You and I will have to get away at once, Deline.”