Bonds of Matrimony (17 page)

'That isn't what I'm angry with you about.'

'Isn't it?'

'Why didn't you let them take the Land-Rover and leave it at Nanyuki? I don't like to think of your driving miles by yourself, no matter how well you know the road.'

'But we need the Land-Rover!' she said.

'Suppose I said I need you more?' he said.

Hero shook her head, her mouth dry. 'I'm sorry,' she murmured.

'Just as well! But don't think you'll always get off so lightly. I won't have you putting yourself into unnecessary danger, no matter what good reasons you think you have for doing so!'

She went red and then very white. 'Benedict, are you

- telling me something?' she asked him.

'I haven't started yet!' he said.

'Excuse me for breathing!' Betsy interjected. 'They're nice people, so they probably will,' Bob told her. 'It's a pity you called the bet off, Hero, or you'd be ten bob the richer! It looks as though we all underrated you!' He saw the keen look Benedict was giving him and brushed his hands together. 'There was no harm in it,' he said. 'It's not my fault, if Hero thought you had other plans which didn't include her. Why, she's spent the whole time you were away trying to make Betsy take an interest in the farm, and a more pointless waste of time than that is hard to find!'

Betsy's laugh rang out. 'The truth is that Hero couldn't contain her jealousy of me a moment longer. Rather sweet, don't you think? But to make such a fuss about my natural desire to keep clean in this barbaric place was taking things a bit far! Nobody was stopping her from having a bath - if she had wanted one. I really can't stand people who martyr themselves for some ridiculous cause and then get cross when everyone else doesn't do the same! When I think of all I've done for you, Hero Kaufman—'

'Hero Carmichael!' said Benedict.

'Oh, for heaven's sake!' Betsy turned on them. 'You're just as bad as each other. Let's go to Nanyuki, if we're going!'

Hero got into the back of the Land-Rover, allowing the others to sit in the front together. Benedict didn't even look at her as he took his place behind the steering-wheel, but he saw her all right when she made to get out at the other end. He held out his hand to her and helped her down.

'I'm sorry if you think I was making a fuss about nothing,' she said.

'I didn't say that.'

'No, but I'm sorry all the same. The thing was, I thought I'd be back before you came home — '

'I see,' he said. 'It's all right if you drive to Nanyuki

behind my back and I don't know about it, is that it.'

'No, I didn't mean that! Only I didn't think you'd be pleased to find Betsy gone.'

'I gathered that!' he agreed, doing nothing to help her out.

'Don't you mind after all?' she asked.

But Benedict was no longer looking at her. He was brisk and businesslike and she was afraid to question him further.

'Those trousers won't do!' he surprised her by saying. 'Change into a dress, Hero. Something soft and pretty. And wear a hat, will you? If you must, you can even have a bath yourself! I flew through a great bank of rain-clouds on the way here. They can't all be so unkind as to go somewhere else! Have your bath, and leave me to worry about the consequences!'

'But where are we going?' she cried out.

'Does it matter? I thought we'd drive with the others as far as Isiolo. I have some business to do there and I thought you might like to come with me.'

'Oh yes! Yes, I would. But I don't have to change for that.'

'No,' he agreed. 'You have to change to please me!'

There didn't seem to be any answer to that. Hero hurried into the house as fast as she could go, half scared that he might change his mind and leave her behind. She pulled open her wardrobe and stared at her few dresses, wondering which of them would meet most closely Benedict's requirements. She chose one that was a bright pink, covered with white broderie anglaise, that her mother had made for her when she had graduated from college. If she sat on a dust-sheet, she thought, she could keep it reasonably clean between there and Isiolo, and even if she couldn't, it was the only dress she had that she would have described as soft and pretty. It had a wide-brimmed hat to go with it too, and pink cotton gloves, and pink high-heeled shoes as well.

She did have a bath. Koinange stoked up the fire, a broad grin on his face, and Hero allowed the water to trickle into the bottom of the bath, scrubbing herself with an energy that left her breathless. It was a glorious sensation to feel thoroughly clean from head to foot, but she couldn't help hoping that Benedict was right about the approaching rain-clouds as she ruefully cleaned the bath after the last of the rust-red water had disappeared down the plug. Until one had experienced the tragic results of drought, one didn't know what a luxury it was to be clean and not looking twice at every cup of water one put to one's lips.

With a self-consciousness that made her feel more than a little foolish, Hero emerged from her room in her pink and white dress and went to join the others on the verandah. 'I'm - I'm sorry to have kept you waiting,' she said.

She didn't know how Benedict looked at her, because she couldn't bring herself to look at him at all. She made an effort to pull herself together and looked round for the others, but they had already gone.

'It's a long way to Nanyuki,' Benedict explained. 'I

told them I'd pass on their good-byes to you.'

'Thank you,' Hero murmured. She fingered the skirt of her dress through her pink gloves. 'This is the prettiest dress I have,' she told him, 'but it isn't at all practical. Is it the sort of thing you wanted?'

'It's exactly what I wanted!' he said. 'Shall we go?'

He had changed his clothes as well. He was wearing off-white trousers that smelt of carbolic soap and sun, and a coat of the same material, under which was a sparkling dead-white shirt, and a striped tie.

A movement caught Hero's eye at the other end of the verandah and she turned quickly to see Koinange running away from the house and jumping on to a waiting lorry that was already full of laughing, excited, noisy Africans, whom she recognized as the workers on the farm. 'Where on earth are they going?' Her eye kindled as she felt the full weight of her responsibility for seeing that the last of the fields were sown with the experimental seed before the rains came - if they came. 'They can't go anywhere now!'

Benedict led her firmly out to the Land-Rover. 'You'll have to blame me. I gave them all the day off.'

'You must be mad! We haven't finished — '

'They'll finish it tomorrow.' He gave her a little shake. 'Besides, my girl, I'll have you know that I am in charge of the work on the farm.'

'But—' she began.

'But nothing! I've given you a lot of rope, Hero Carmichael, but now you've come to the end of it. My patience is exhausted. You have no more time left—' He was silent for a moment. Then, 'You don't understand, do you? Never mind, mwanamke, you will!' 'Don't call me that!'

He gave her a long, cool look. 'If you don't like it, you know you can change it any time you care to. I'm not stopping you!'

'I can't! Benedict, I want to go to England soon. I can't go on staying at the farm with you. I should have gone back to Nairobi with the others and then you couldn't call me your concubine or anything else.' 'You'd still be my wife.'

She threw him a mutinous look. 'Your mwanamke! I won't be called that by anyone!'

'All right,' he said, 'if you don't like it, after today no one will ever call you that again!'

'I don't like it!'

He plainly thought that funny. 'I haven't forgotten that I've promised to take you to England either. We'll go, just as soon as I can get away with a clear conscience. Will that do?'

She nodded, not daring to speak.

The Land-Rover was a lot cleaner than when she had last seen it. Koinange must have brushed out the front and washed down the seats, and somebody had covered the canvas with American cloth, cheap and unbleached, to protect their clothes from the dust. Hero sat as far away from Benedict as she could get, pulling the cloth up all round her, and staring out at the passing scenery as though she had never seen it before.

It was she who saw the giraffe on the road ahead of them, bending across to a nearby tree to look for the few leaves that were left on the disintegrating timbers. It was a proud, awkward-looking beast, and it had no

intention of moving aside for anyone.

'We could practically drive through its legs!' Hero g
ⁱ
gg
^led
-

He hushed her with a movement of his hand. 'She has a baby over there,' he whispered.

'But it's tiny! They'll starve, won't they?' she said.

He touched her gloved hand with his own. 'They may be lucky. It will rain tonight at least. It's not much, but it may keep them going.'

Hero heaved a sigh. 'This year! What about next?'

'They're not the only ones to suffer,' he reminded her. 'We know it's bound to get worse all along the Sahelian belt - and not only in Africa, but in the Indian sub-continent too. If we allow thousands of people and animals to die, it will be a man-made disaster. It doesn't have to happen.'

'But it will, won't it?' she said.

'Probably.'

'Can't you stop it?'

'No, I cannot, but that won't stop me trying! Will that do you?'

Hero watched the giraffes go with a sense of loss. 'Is it true that the only wild animals in England are all in zoos?' she asked him.

'Not exactly,' he answered. 'But it isn't like it is out here. There aren't any giraffes walking across the open road, for instance!'

She laughed. 'Stupid!' she murmured. 'You know quite well what I meant!'

He gave her a more serious look. 'It takes a little getting used to, living in England. I can't promise you'd like it at first. There isn't the freedom you have here, there isn't the room for it. I can't promise your mountains and grandeur,' he cautioned her. 'England is full of small green fields, and pretty little rounded hills, also green, but it has the charm of her people. A temperate climate makes for a tolerant nation.'

'Where are we going in Isiolo?' she asked him.

'Ah,' he said, 'I wondered when you'd ask me that! We're going to church, as we should have done before. They're expecting us. I called up the good fathers on the radio telephone and told them we'd be with them about lunchtime. They thought it was about time too! I explained to them that you hadn't wanted a religious ceremony in Nairobi because we'd only just met, and you weren't at all sure of yourself as far as marriage to me was concerned. They thought you were quite right about that—'

'They did?'

'Well, they did rather wonder what your mother would have thought of it all, but I pointed out that the bonds of matrimony took a bit of getting used to when you're marrying a complete stranger and that to make them unbreakable at the same time would have put an

intolerable strain on you.'

'And on you?'

'It was different for me,' he said. 'You see, I knew exactly what I was doing from the first moment I saw

y
^ou
.'

Benedict might have thought that he had explained their civil wedding to the priests, but it didn't stop Hero from feeling that it was unlikely that they would have accepted his explanation. But there she was

wrong.

'Ah, Hero me dear,' she was greeted in strong, Australian accents. 'I was beginning to think I'd have to come out to the farm to take a look at you and that husband of yours. Like to have everything dinkum, as you know. But Benedict explained that it was nothing more than an engagement so far, but as you were together out there you thought it more proper to have some kind of ceremony first. Quite right, me dear! Your mother would have approved! And now we can have the real thing and you can both live happily ever after. Come along now. I take it you want me to say Mass, so I'll just get vested while you say a little prayer in the church.'

Hero, who had opened her mouth to speak once or twice during this speech, decided that silence would serve her better, and followed the priest meekly through the open door and up the aisle.

The Mass was in English, which caused some embarrassment when the priest could only find the words of the marriage service in Swahili. However, after some flustered searching through some typewritten bits of paper he had on the lectern, accompanied by some very Australian comments under his breath, he translated the words himself and managed to make them sound more personal than Hero had ever heard them.

She found she couldn't look at Benedict once during the service. It was as much as she could do to hold her hand steady when he took it in his, removed her wedding ring and put it back again. Did he know that now it could never be removed again? He certainly put it on her finger as if he meant it to stay there. But to have arranged it all without saying a single, solitary word to her about it. He must have been very sure of her for that!

Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. He had done it now, she thought. The bonds would be there for as long as they both lived and nothing could break them. She looked up at him and then saw the wide smile on his face.

'Didn't I promise you that no one would call you my mwanamke ever again?' he whispered to her, as the priest disappeared into the sacristy to divest.

She wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes. 'Oh, Benedict, I don't care what they call me! I want to be the sort of wife you want, no more than that!'

'I know,' he said. 'You were asleep before, but now you're waking up, and you don't know where you are. But I meant to have you all along, with your dark Greek eyes and your loving heart, as I tried to tell you that very first day.'

She could only stare at him. 'But you said she was rather a darling!' she said when she could say anything at all.

'And so she is!' he said, kissing her hard on the mouth.

CHAPTER TWELVE HERO blinked as they left the cool sanctuary of the church for the brilliant sunshine outside. It was a second or two before she could focus on the grinning faces of the farm workers led by Koinange, beside himself with excitement. Too late, she saw the handful of grass seed in his hand and received it full in the face.