Mayenga Farm (4 page)

And now, after a silence of three months, Jackie had written to ask if she and her mother might spend a few days with them at Christmas. It seemed too utterly fantastic to be true.

Rennie ran indoors, found her father pulling on his riding boots in the hall, and waved the letter at him.

"It’s from Jackie! Read it"

"I can’t, my dear. I’ve left my glasses somewhere. What does she say?"

"She wants to come for Christmas — she and her mother — for about four days from Christmas Eve. Jackie here at Mayenga! Can you believe it?"

After a quiet moment of surprise, he laughed indulgently.

"Excites you, doesn’t it? You were always fond of Jackie — attraction of opposites, I suppose. She used to be a little monkey, yet everyone liked her."

"I want her to come, of course, but how on earth are we going to accommodate them?"

"Oh. That's rather a problem when you’ve only two bedrooms, and neither of them large. I think Mrs. Caton had better have mine; you’ve made it by far the more comfortable."

"No. I won’t have that."

"But you must. There’s a perfectly good stoep at the side which will convert into a sleeping porch for me. We can stand the expense of a couple of camp beds."

"Still, I hate turning you out. And I’m afraid they’ll expect good catering. They’re accustomed to the best of everything."

"Why not? It’s only for a few days. We ought to be able to rise to that." He gave her his slow, endearing smile. "We’ll be reckless for once, and pull in afterwards. This is just what you need, Rennie. Remember the way you two used to chatter in your bedroom, till I knocked on the door and told you to save the rest till morning?"

"I do. Jac always giggled and went on whispering. But last time we saw her she was changing, becoming even more frivolous. Her tone of writing is frightfully sophisticated." Rennie paused. "Isn’t it odd, though, to come here for Christmas?"

"Was the letter sent from London?"

"Yes, Kensington."

"No mention of a reason for leaving her grandparents at such a time?"

"Apparently her father is taking up an appointment in Cape Town at the New Year, and all three are travelling by air to Johannesburg. The father goes straight on, by plane."

"They’re separating—on Christmas Eve?" Adrian shrugged. "Perhaps we’re old-fashioned, Rennie. Whatever their reason for visiting us, I’m grateful, for your sake. Jackie will help to make this a memorable Christmas for you. We could try to persuade her to stay on for a while."

He went out, and Rennie found a notepad and pencil and began calculating the financial side of the visit. She would buy only one camp bed, for Adrian, and get a boy to make up a framework which she herself could upholster and cover, and convert into a sort of divan, which might look attractive in the hall during the daytime besides providing a bed for herself at night. They would need extra groceries, some wine and whisky, a length of material for curtains and covers to enhance Rennie's bedroom. And, oh goodness, Jackie and her mother would bring gifts and expect some in return.

There was nothing for it but to set aside ten pounds for the purpose of entertaining Jackie and Adela Caton, and to hope with crossed fingers that a pound or two of it might go back into the dwindling reserve fund. Having come to which decision Rennie cheerfully sent off her cable to Jackie and set about her preparations. She sewed and baked, rushed into town and back again, galloped out to relieve Adrian while he returned to the house for meals, and sandwiched in between all this her usual farm chores. And all the while she was thinking how wonderful it would be to have Jackie to laugh and gossip with. Somehow, Jac infused the dullest incident with her sparkle. When she was about, things happened.

C H A P T E R T H R E E JACKIE'S plane was due to arrive at dawn. She and her mother would breakfast at the airport and take the eight o'clock train north, which should reach Gravenburg at six in the evening.

Rennie and Adrian were ready before five, but she had to have a last look at every room. Adrian's severely green and grey, relieved from semi-monasticity by the bowl of orange and white poppies on the dressing-table. Her own room, transformed by stiff white spot-muslin curtains and bedspread, and a sweet Dolly Varden concocted from a packing case, a few yards of flowered cotton and a barbola mirror touched up with paint. Jackie would adore the Dolly Varden in the small bay window; she would spread her skirts over the stool tilt her head and unashamedly soak in her lovely image in the mirror. A few times, when they were at school together, Rennie had envied the raven-haired little minx her air of knowledge and ease. Even in her teens she had carried an atmosphere of mystery and beguilement. At twenty she must be ravishing. How crazy to be so utterly thrilled at the prospect of seeing Jac again.

Adrian said: "You're like a kitten on hot coals. Let's start, shall we?"

The train came in late but there was plenty to observe while they waited. On the opposite platform crowds of natives jostled and laughed and hugged their bundles, or squatted in circles and threw home-made dice. These were city workers returning to the locations for the night. Trains were so infrequent that often they had to spend two hours waiting for one to take them five miles. It was not that they had lost the native faculty for long, tireless walking, but they loved crowding into trains and hanging out of the glassless windows, singing and shouting. It gave them a sense of power to produce a coin and buy a ticket, to step into the dusty carriage and join the scrum for the wooden seats.

The train came in and a few people got out. Rennie sped along to the last open door and into Jacqueline's madly-waving arms.

"Rennie, you wonderful thing! I’ve been dying for this. You haven’t changed a bit."

"You have, Jac! You're lovelier than ever."

So she was. A piquant, laughing face, brilliant dark eyes and clouds of smoky hair topped by a delicious little rake of a hat that flaunted scarlet ribbons to the breeze. A Paris frock in devastating silk tartan, and a short white lambskin coat. Perhaps it was the wide green background, the hovering dusk, which helped Jac to appear so vital and jubilant.

"Rennie, darling, here’s Mother. Adela, you remember Rennie Gaynor? Sweet as ever, isn’t she? Lead us to your noble father, Rennie! I always loved him, though I’m sure he disapproved of me sometimes."

Adela, tall, tailored and lacquered, extended a beautifully-kept hand. In spite of make-up and poise, the dissatisfied droop at the corners of her mouth was plainly visible. Obviously, a fly threatened the amber of Adela’s content. But after greeting Adrian and fussing a little over the two grips, she made a charming companion. She sat beside him in the car while the two girls occupied the back. She did not complain about the choking dust and the corrugations in the road surface, and only once did she mention that this was a rather long twelve miles. Which was exceptionally long-suffering, for Adela.

Jackie kept up a flow of questions and comments.

"How can you bear to live so far from everywhere, Rennie? Isn’t the bushveld nearly as unhealthy as the tropics? Someone told us we must take quinine to avoid malaria. You don’t do that? But, Rennie, think of what you’re risking! I’d die of fright if I thought I had malaria. And, darling, you work so hard — and at farming. It sounds terribly grim. You can’t mean that you enjoy living here and grubbing about with the soil. Gravenburg, I should think, one could tolerate for a short time, but you are buried away miles from the town. What do you do for men?"

"What sort of men?" asked Rennie, intentionally obtuse.

Jacqueline threw out her hands. "Eligibles, you idiot. Nice boys to play with, serious ones with property from whom to choose a husband." Her head lay critically on one side. "In your quiet way you’re pretty, Rennie. That rich brown hair and grey eyes make an appealing combination, and such a mouth as yours should be kissed . . . often. Don’t blush, Rennie! It should, and I don’t care if your learned father hears me say it." As Adrian’s head turned for an instant she dazzled him with a smile. "When you look like that, Mr. Gaynor, it is easy to see where Rennie gets her good features."

Yes, Jackie was still a bit of a puss, and one still liked her at sight. She was incorrigible and ingenuously charming. Volubly staccato over the crisp white bedroom which Rennie had prepared, she clasped the frilly pyjama case and pirouetted. But presently she sobered and came close to where Rennie stood.

"You're wondering why we’re here, aren’t you, darling? Christmas in the bushveld hardly sounds like Jackie, does it? It isn’t, really, but I honestly was aching to see you again. I persuaded Adela to come. She and my father are . . . well, not so indispensable to each other as they used to be. She's upset about his taking this post at Cape Town; if she settles there with him it will mean losing all her friends in England and making a new set at the Cape." She grimaced. "I must say I think it’s rather selfish of Popsie, but he says they're getting older all the time and he wants a home." She sighed, but not unhappily. "A few days apart may make both of them give in just a wee bit."

"You don’t mind not being with him at Christmas?"

"Oh, no. We’re not that kind of family unit — we’ve been apart too often. We'll probably have a few parties later on to make up for missing this time together. Here comes Adela. Don’t let her guess that I've told you."

It was a jolly evening, rich with reminiscences and uncomplicated goodwill. Mutually, they had agreed on eleven o'clock as bedtime, but midnight was long past when at last they yawned their way to their separate beds.

Next morning Adela breakfasted in her room and Jackie blithely lent a willing, if inexpert hand in the dairy. So noon came before they all exchanged gifts and good wishes, and drank a festive toast round the decorated pine branch which Rennie had planted in a tub of sand.

"When I was a child," said Adela, "we used to blow out a Christmas candle on the tree and wish — each one of us."

"Out loud?" demanded her daughter.

"No, inside our heads. We believed in it."

"Did your wishes come true ?"

"Quite often. We weren’t so foolish as to ask for the impossible."

"Rennie!" exclaimed Jacqueline. "Light the candles." "Not in

daylight. Wait till this evening."

"I've got my wish all ready," Jackie lamented. "A marvellous wish complete with trimmings, but perhaps it will be more fun when the others are here."

Blankly, Rennie's brain repeated, "The others!" But her tongue kept silent. Frantically, she caught Adrian's eye, to warn him. He gave her one of his slow, comprehending smiles and her breathing evened out, though her heart still beat quickly. This was awful. Gaily disregarding the evidence of her senses, Jackie was expecting a Christmas party; no doubt she visualized hordes of handsome young farmers crunching up the drive, bursting into the house and requesting mistletoe ... or else.

Adrian said quietly: "I’m afraid we haven’t arranged any high jinks, Jackie — we haven't been established here long enough for that — but we can drive into Gravenburg after dinner for music and dancing. I believe there's an open Christmas Party at the Pinetree Club."

At least another five pounds, Rennie groaned to herself, and she wasn't at all sure that the single evening dress in her wardrobe had anything in common with today’s fashions; it was at least three years old. Why couldn't Jackie be content to lead the rustic life for these four days?

They dressed for dinner, Adela in flowing blue, her daughter in tight-bodiced white with a full skirt and a scarlet bolero. Both frocks were fresh from the flat-iron after their confined journey from England in an air grip. Rennie's green dress had puffed sleeves which she rather thought were now out of date, but as her tan broke off abruptly between elbow and shoulder, the short sleeves would serve a purpose. There was a slight satisfaction in knowing that she couldn't have worn a strapless gown, even had she possessed one.

After dinner, Adrian took away the lamps and set a match to the Christmas candles. Amid laughter, each blew out a flame and wished. Adrian blew so hard that two went out; which, he averred, resting a tender glance upon Rennie, lent double strength to his wish. Adela looked pious over the ceremony. Jackie frowned with concentration and desire, and Rennie automatically wished, as she always did when they snapped a wishbone, for her father's continued good health. Nothing in the world was so important as that.

They went out to the car. It was a moonless night but the stars hung in a soft black sky, and the trees exchanged whispers. The shrill chirping of cicadas mingled with the sporadic hoarse croak or bull-frogs at the water-hole, till the noise of the engine obliterated both.

Out on the Gravenburg road they passed a house ablaze with light. Men drank and smoked on the veranda and there was the sound of music from a wide front lounge where young people danced. Then darkness again, an occasional smaller house, just as lively in aspect. To Jackie this outdoor way of spending Christmas night was thrilling. She said she felt like waving a banner and telling everyone that she had never seen anything like it before.

As might be expected, the Pinetree Club stood within a circle of pollard pines. Each side of the floodlit drive yellow and orange cannas offered their velvet trumpets, and the expanse of terrace was screened by palmettos, while just inside the foyer a long bank of tiny flower heads read: "Merry Christmas." The manager had apparently expended much trouble on the decorations.

Dinner was just over. Flushed, well-fed couples and groups were issuing from the dining-room to take a breath of air before dancing. Adrian had seated his ladies at a table near the bar and called the waiter. Then he was standing again, offering his fineboned hand to someone who stood behind Rennie.

"Good evening, Kent. Season’s greetings to you, my boy. Meeting anyone or would you care to join us? May I introduce you? We have Mrs. Caton and her daughter, Jacqueline, staying with us."

Kent moved slightly and bowed. "How do you do, Mrs. Caton . . . Miss Caton." His mouth sardonic, he looked at Rennie. "Good evening, child. Happy Christmas!"