And No Regrets (14 page)

“Yes, I can’t leave it much longer. It’s one of the lousiest spots in West Africa, and we ought to spend longer on it than I did last season—there’ll be a lot to do. I don’t know how three of us are going to manage in that run-down shed.”

“I could stay at Bula, as I did before,” she said, though she longed to make that awful trip with him.

He ran a finger along the curve of her arm. “No, I can’t allow that again.”

“It wasn’t too bad. I got along all right.” With a slow, casual movement she twined her fingers among his.

“You were peaked-looking and miserable, and I’d scamped the work to get back.”

And Don Carter had happened along while she was alone!

“I’m much more friendly with the bush now,” she reminded him.

“That makes no difference. I won’t leave you alone there again.”

As though absently, she ran a thumb over the crisp hairs across the back of his hand. “We brought a tent from England, remember.”

“So we did. It must be examined and if necessary repaired.” He gave a short sigh that contrasted oddly with his slightly mocking smile. “You do understand why March is the limit, don’t you, Clare?”

“I understand perfectly.” She released his hand very casually. “Our contract expires in March, and with your methodical mind you hate not to conclude business right on the dot. I hope, Ross, that my stay here yielded dividends of some sort?”

Her mouth was parted in
her
gayest smile, but her
eyes were darker and deeper than the
lake
below this ridge where she sat with Ross. She skimmed her cigarette butt over the ledge, and it dropped out of sight. “You don’t want to go back to England, do you, Ross
?
” she said.

“I could face another five years of this with equanimity,” he agreed.

“Yet you talked of taking a post in Cape Town?” Her eyes dwelt on his face that had such an eagle-like quality, setting him apart from other men. “Eagles fly alone,” she thought, and knew it to be true.

“Yes, I could go to the Cape and sit at a desk and dictate letters for most of the day,” he said sardonically.

“It doesn’t sound like you, Ross.”

“It isn’t. The chief has been dangling this job before my nose like a carrot to a donkey, but I’d prefer a plantation of my own somewhere where the climate is reasonably good. The devil of it is, it takes so much capital to get started.”

“Even if you began in a small way?”

“It would have to be a very small way, a comedown from Bula. I’ve thought about this a lot,” he continued as though talking to himself. “If I took that job at the Cape and stuck it for three years, I should save a good bit if I really tried. Adding it to what I’ve already put by, I could branch out on my own.”

C
lare sat listening in a state of blissful torment to his plans for the future. She thought: “We’re closer at this moment than we’ve ever been. He’s never unburdened himself like this before ... to anyone.”

“When you sink every bit of cash into a venture of that sort,” he was saying, “you intend staying more or less for keeps. You buy land that’s fairly near a town and build a storied house to which you can ask people without embarrassment.”

She thought:' “The loneliness has to be combated now and again, and he’s independent of women most
of the time....”

“I’m not sorry to have to stay on at Bula a further three months. Things should have taken some sort of shape by June,” he added.

“Everything there looks pretty good to me, she said. “You’ve done wonders.”

“I’ll miss your morale boosting after March,” he commented, a wry grin slashing the
skin of his cheek. A knife in the ribs which she took equably.

“Don’t look like that, honey.” He bent and landed a kiss on her nose. “I’ll notice it when I no longer see you about the bungalow. I’ve grown used to seeing you across the table to me when I come in for meals, fresh and sweet and most times smiling. But
... well, we made a bargain, didn’t we? I think it wiser to stick to it.
”

“Whatever happens?” she murmured. “Even if we finished by liking each othe
r
so much that parting was
...
hell?”

“A bargain’s a bargain.” His nose jutted, his chin was hard and firm. “I shan’t change my mind, Clare.”

“You sound awfully ... hard,” she said thinly.
“
Full of cold reason, but I suppose this savage climate does that to men ... and women.”

“
Given time it does,” he agreed harshly. “While its an adventure, okay. But for life
... you’ve got to be
hard
to take it
.”

And loved,” she thought wistfully. “Loved and
wanted beyond cold reason.”

“I see now that you and I had to come together,” she said, gazing down into the shimmering lake. “My backbone needed the stiffening of your arrogance and cynicism and ruthlessness. Whatever turns up in my life when
... we’re through, I shall be tougher and less emotional, more capable of finding my niche.” She spoke with quick, feverish dryness, jerking out the sentences as they formed in her mind, bent upon convincing him that she had the strength to face finality. “Remember how you made me look at the lightning, Ross? I blenched but didn’t flinch because I could feel your strength streaming into me. There have been other times like that.” Her brows drew together and she hurried on. “I’m strong, Ross. Thanks to you.”

“Thanks for my selfish egoism, eh?” He was looking at her with a silvery glint in his eyes. Then he lifted her hand and placed a kiss deep in the palm. “Thanks for your generosity and understanding, Clare.”

The Pryces came in January as they had promised, and Clare welcomed them warmly. Seated beside Mrs. Pryce on the veranda of the schoolhouse, she watched the children form an untidy crocodile on the grass, their fuzzy heads as still as they could keep them, their eyes bright and lively in the gleaming bronze of their faces. Mr. Pryce gave the order to march, and when the children grasped his wishes they began to straggle across to the fence of the playground. They sidled round the
corner
s and finished the first circular tour in a heap at the schoolhouse steps.

Patiently Mr. Pryce put them through their exercises. Five-year-old Eto, the son of Luke, derived great enjoyment from the novelty of it all, hauling every now and again at his roomy shorts and going into spasms of laughter when the other children made mistakes.

Later the children filed into the classroom, ate their bowls of rice and syrup, then sank into somnolence while the missionary read them a simplified version of the Good Samaritan.

Presently Mr. Pryce came out to say that Johnny had come from the house with a message. The steamer was in with the mail and the messenger from the boat had instructions to collect the Bula letters as quickly as possible because the skipper was sick and anxious to get to a doctor.

“We’ll follow you to the house after we’ve cleared up here,” said Mrs. Pryce. “Will you give the boy our letters?”

“Of course,” Clare smiled, and walked the hot, dusty track through the compound. A boy sat on the lowest step outside the house and rose as she approached. She bade Johnny give him food and went into the living-room to find the large oilskin envelope which held their mail. She shook out the bundle of letters and slipped the Pryces’ correspondence into their place, then found her own couple and added them to the packet.

She stood pondering. Where were Ross’s letters? Previously he had sent the messenger ahead, and himself carried the mail down to the landing-stage in order to gather local news from the skipper. Today he was working miles away, and the steamer was in a hurry.

His office stationery he kept in a drawer in his bedroom. Almost certainly his mail would be there. She went through to the bedroom, darkened against the sun, and pulled open the drawer. Yes, here they were, a pile secured with a strip of tape; she returned to the living-room and fitted his letters into the oilskin envelope beside her own and the Pryces’. It was a tight squeeze, the square, official envelope at the back, then the foolscap one to head office, and the small private envelopes....

She stared at the Onitslo address on one of Ross’s. She was suffused with a blinding heat, which became ice. A trickle of cold sweat slanted from the
corner
of her eyebrow down the side of her cheek
... like a tear. Deftly, as though having no connection with her brain, her hands completed the task of filling the oilskin and securing it. She called Johnny and had him take it away to the boy.

Mechanically her feet paced the room till they halted
near a window. She peered through the slatted blind at the baked red soil and the sun-drained grass. Her fingers were plucking at her belt, her nostrils twitched. Slowly the tight feeling in her throat relaxed and she began to breathe more easily. Her head went up proudly and she drew back her shoulders. A desperate little smile pulled at the corners of her mouth.

Why shouldn’t he write to Patsy Harriman? He was free to do as he pleased. He was not curious as to whom, she corresponded with, and she had no right to pry into his letters. It served her right if she had discovered something that was not altogether to her taste.

She took a handkerchief from her pocket, dabbed at her lips and then saw that a small spot of blood had marked the soft white cambric. She had bitten her lip and had not noticed the pain, so bitter was the pain that was squeezing her heart. In his delirium he spoke the girl’s name. He received letters from her
... and he answered those letters. It was hard to bear
...
even difficult to understand, for the girl was married, and Clare would not have taken Ross for a man who ran after the wives of other men.

Clare closed her eyes and conjured up a mental picture of the girl. Tallish, slim, dark-haired, with a poppy mouth that sulked against a curiously pale skin for this climate. Clare could well see the physical attraction of her, but mentally she had seemed vapid ... but then a woman’s angle on another woman was invariably different from the male angle, and love took little heed of mental feelings when attraction planted its blind dart.

Mark came in to prepare the table for dinner. Crockery and glasses clinked ... Clare had always loved that sound, the music that preceded Ross’s return from work to this small haven she had made as comfortable as possible for him. Mark shot a fain
tl
y puzzled
smile
at her. “Missus okay?” he asked.

“
M
i
ssus fine, Mark,” she said gallantly, and then saw that she had ripped her handkerchief to shreds with her fingernails and that she had been doing it unconsciously in front of the houseboy. She thrust the handkerchief into her pocket, and turned to smile at the Pryces as they came in and sank into chairs.

“Hello,” she said brightly. “Aren’t I lazy? I haven’t even changed. Do excuse me while I put on a clean frock, and then we’ll have drinks. I can hardly wait to look at the mail the boy brought from the steamer.” Clare went into her comparatively cool bedroom, where she took a frock from the closet and gave it an habitual shake. A moth flew out of the skirt and she watched it flutter to the window with listless eyes. What did it matter if the moths were eating into the last of her dresses? Nothing was worse than the worm of jealousy and bitterness that was eating into her heart. You gave your heart to a man, and your devotion, and even risked your life in a tropical climate to be with, him, but in return he was cruel enough to give his love elsewhere. Yes, cruel!

She slipped into the flowered frock, brushed her hair and looped it back with a ribbon. Her thoughts wandered into the future. She had flippantly told Ross that she would borrow money from her father and go to Egypt. But would she? Would she have the heart to go anywhere on her return to England? Perhaps if Simon was back in Ridgley, and still showed signs of loving her, she might fall into his arms on the rebound from Ross. Let him ease her aching heart a
little
with his love.

Shoulders braced, she went out to the living-room to make polite conversation with her guests. Yes, the piccans were amusing, but it would certainly take a lot of patience and affection to get them into the routine of lessons and games.

“But it will all be so worthwhile,” Mrs. Pryce enthused. “Clare, when we accomplish something like this schoolhouse in the bush, I really feel that everything has been worthwhile for us—for James and myself. Of course, without your husband’s help, the whole project would have gone ahead at a much slower rate. What a hustler he is
!”

“He’s certainly a worker,” Clare agreed, lying back in a cane chair with a long citrus drink, a web of lassitude and shock woven about her limbs, her heart, her thoughts. The hands of the clock moved slowly round to the moment of his return, and there was no quickening of joy in her. She felt let down, her love a maimed thing inside her.

He came in, his shirt dark with sweat, bush hat at the back of his head, sinewy legs scratched from jungle thorns, “You ought to be more careful of getting scratched by those,” Mrs. Pryce remarked. “Many bush thorns are virulent.”

“I’m usually more careful—thanks, Clare.” He accepted a tall gin and lime and took a long gulp. “I guess I’ve had my mind too much on one or two other things. Mmm, that was good! I’ll go and freshen up before dinner—oh, I see the mail came
!”

He went over to the wad of letters on the bamboo table and flipped through them. Clare watched him through her lashes. Was he looking for a letter from Patsy? Well, there was no pink envelope in that little lot
... what a disappointment for him!

They had dinner, then lazed and talked on the veranda about the teacher who was coming shortly to take over the running of the school. The talk got around to England—as it inevitably did when a group of white tropic dwellers got together. “You lucky girl, Clare.” Mrs. Pryce squeezed her wrist. “You must be feeling so excited about going home.”