The House of Seven Fountains (16 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

For a long m
oment
they stared at each other in a silent battle of wills. Vivien’s eyes were bright with anger and her chin lifted mutinously. But even as she glared at him, her whole body stiff with resentment and disdain, she knew that she must be the loser. His will was an implacable force against which any counteraction was futile, and it was his will, not his superior physical strength, to which he would make her submit. Not, she knew bitterly, that his grip on her arm was an idle threat. He would have no compunction in carrying her out if she goaded him into it.

“Very well,” she said in a tone that was brittle with fury. “It seems I have no choice but to leave. Have I your permission to get my wrap?”

“The waiter will get it for you.” He beckoned a waiter and said something in Cantonese.

The man nodded and hurried away.

“He will bring it down to the car,” Tom said. “I’ve told him to tell Barclay that you are not feeling well but don’t want to break up the party.”

“Oh! You’re insufferable!”

“So I’ve been told before. Shall we go?”

“It isn’t necessary to hold onto me.”

“
Very well.
”
He let go of her wrist, and they left the bar and went down the stairs and out of the building.

“My car is just across the road,” he said.

As she got into the car there was a hail from behind them and, turning, she saw Julian hurrying across the road with her jacket over his arm. But any hope of the tables being turned was swiftly quashed when she saw the expression on Tom’s face.

“I say, what’s up? The boy said you’d been taken ill,” Julian exclaimed concernedly.

Vivien took a deep breath. “It’s all right, Julian. My ankle
has started to hurt and Dr. Stransom kindly offered to drive me home. Please don’t let it spoil the party.” Her inflection on the “kindly” was vitriolic, but Julian did not notice it.

“Why on earth didn’t you tell me you were feeling rotten?” he asked. “It’s very decent of you to step in, Stransom, old man, but I wouldn’t dream of staying on in the circumstances.”

“Miss Connell is very anxious that you shouldn’t leave your other guests, and since I shall have to restrap her foot I may just as well drive her home,” Tom said smoothly.

“Oh, well, in that case perhaps you’d better,” Julian agreed. “Is there anything I can do? I feel the whole thing is my fault.”

“On the contrary, it is entirely Miss Connell’s fault for disobeying my instructions.”

Julian looked a little staggered at this blunt indictment. While Tom got into the driver’s seat and started the car, Julian wrapped the jacket around Vivien’s shoulders.

“I’ll come up tomorrow morning,” he said. “I’m sorry the evening has to end like this, my dear.”

Vivien managed a wan smile. “Never
mind. I enjoyed myself in spite of it,” she said.

He stood back. “Good night. Take care of her, Stransom.” As they drove away Vivien slipped her arms into the sleeves of her jacket and sank back against the seat. Her head ached, and she felt desperately tired. All the fight had gone out of her, and in spite of her chagrin at being forced to leave the dance, she was secretly glad to be out of the hot, smoky ballroom.

“Cigarette?” Tom asked, taking his case from his pocket and snapping it open.

“
No, thank you.
”

He lighted one for himself, keeping his right hand on the steering wheel and his eyes on the road.

“Why didn’t you appeal for help to Barclay?” he asked.

“I considered it. There was really no point in involving him. He isn’t the type to enjoy a scene.”

“Are you implying that I would have made one?”

“Not exactly. But you have a knack of getting your own way, haven’t you?”

“Certainly. There’s no point in making decisions if you aren’t going to stand by them.”

“Are you always confident that your point of view is the right one?” she asked.

“Generally.”

“It must be very satisfactory to be so sure of oneself.”

“It is necessary if one is to accept any kind of responsibility,” he said, “In my job one often has to make swift decisions. A doctor can’t afford to dither.”

“I suppose not
...
Won’t your friends wonder where you are?” She remembered the couple who had been with him.

“I told them I was leaving just before I saw you.”

After that they were silent for a while. Vivien’s eyelids flickered sleepily.

“I expected you to spit fire at me all the way home,” he said suddenly. “Or are you planning a more subtle revenge?”

She stifled a yawn.

“I’m too tired to battle with you,” she said drowsily. “It’s been a long day.”

“That’s a relief,” he said with a short laugh. “You’ve a hot temper, my girl. If all my patients were as intractable, I should be in need of a long furlough.”

When they reached the house he took his bag from the backseat and went around to open the passenger door for her. She was dizzy with fatigue, and in the lighted hall her face showed pale and a little drawn with dark smudges under her eyes.

“You’d better go straight to bed. Call Ah Kim to help you. I’ll wait in the study until you’re ready,” he said.

As it happened Ah Kim was still up, and with her assistance Vivien was soon washed and dressed in clean cotton pajamas. Wrapping herself in a thin kimono she lay down on the bed and asked Ah Kim to call Tom.

“I’ve told her to heat some milk,” he said as he came in. “You may not like the stuff, but it will do you good.”

“I suppose if I refused to drink it, you would force it down my throat,” she said with the glimmer of a smile.

With the lamplight shining on her loosened hair and the makeup washed away she looked very young and curiously defenseless.

His mouth twitched. “I think I have bullied you enough for one day,” he said dryly, sitting down on the side of the bed and examining her ankle with the lean brown fingers that could be so strong and yet so gentle.

She winced as he touched the place where she had been kicked.

“Hmm, no serious damage, though it’s more by luck than judgment,” he said, rolling a fresh bandage over her instep. “Is that too tight?”

She shook her head. The lock of dark hair had fallen over his forehead, and she had an absurd impulse to reach out and brush it back.

“It was nice of you to help the dance hostess,” she said abruptly.

He shrugged. “I daresay the fellow didn’t mean any harm. He’s a planter, which excuses a good deal. Any man is liable to make a fool of himself after he’s been cooped up on an isolated rubber estate for weeks at a stretch. He’s probably
quite a decent chap when he’s sober.”

She remembered the man’s greedy, bloodshot eyes, his fleshy lips and rough, hairy hands.

“He looked like a brute,” she said distastefully.

Tom pinned the end of the bandage in place.

“There’s a strain of brutality in all of us,” he said quietly. “Most of the time it’s under control, but it’s always there.” Ah Kim tapped at the door and came in with a beaker of warm milk on a tray. Vivien drank it quickly, making a wry face. “Good girl,” said Tom. “Now I’ll leave you in peace.”

“About the dressing on my leg, will you call or shall I come to the surgery?” she asked.

“I’ll come here. Probably after lunch. Good night.”

He held out his hand, and she put hers into it.

“Sleep tight, little one,” he said softly.

When he had gone Vivien said good-night to Ah Kim and switched off the lamp. She tossed the kimono onto the end of the bed and slid her legs beneath the sheet. As she plumped the pillow, she thought that Tom Stransom was the most confusing man she had ever met. An hour ago she had called him insufferable and now
...
now what? She was still trying to analyze her contrary emotions when she fell asleep.

Ten days l
ater
Mr. Adams came to Mauping.

“I don’t need to ask how you’re liking Malaya,” he said, as they met at the airport. “If I may say so, my dear, you look a different girl.”

“I feel it,” Vivien agreed, smiling. “In fact I’ve never enjoyed myself so much before.”

It was not until after lunch that the solicitor mentioned the purpose of his visit. For the first time since his arrival he saw a shadow cloud Vivien’s eyes.

“The truth is I haven’t really thought about the future,” she admitted. “I’ve been enjoying myself so much that I’ve kept putting it off.”

“
I gather you’re not impatient to get back home to England?
”

“
Impatient
!”
she exclaimed.
“
If only there was some way of keeping up this house, I’d spend the rest of my life here.”

“Ah, so you have made up your mind in one direction at least,” Mr. Adams said.

“But what one would like to do and what one can do are two very different things,” she said ruefully.

“That is most often the case, I agree, but not invariably. Anyway, there’s no need to make a decision just yet. I arranged to visit you fairly soon because I thought it possible that you might dislike it here.”

“Surely no one could do that,” she said, looking around the courtyard with an expression that told the solicitor how swiftly the Chinese mansion had captured her heart.

“When you said you’d like to settle here, I take it you meant that the country, as well as this particular house, appealed to you,” he observed.

“Yes, I did. The house is perfect, and I’m living like a duchess, but even if it were an ordinary wooden bungalow with a dusty compound I’d still want to stay. There’s something about the country that puts a kind of spell over me. It’s difficult to explain. Somehow life in England seems so dreadfully drab by comparison. Is that very disloyal, do you think?”

Mr. Adams shook his head. “I don’t think so, my dear. There are some of us who are bo
rn
to travel and find a new place for ourselves. I’ve spent nearly forty years in Singapore and I daresay I shall stay there till the end of my days. I’m proud to be a Scotsman, and I often think of the hills and lochs that I knew as a boy, but if I were to return to them now, my heart would be here.”

“Yes, I know what you mean,” she said. “I’ve only been in Malaya a little while, but I feel more
...
more alive somehow. And there’s so much to do that I could never have done in England. The people in the settlement, for instance; they need someone to help and look after them. Oh, I forgot to tell you,
I’ve asked Dr. Stransom and Miss Buxton to dinner tonight.” She told him about Miss Buxton, and how she was teaching the children from the home to swim.

“
I thought of starting a sort of nursery class for the children in the settlement,” she went on. “But I suppose it would be foolish as I won’t be here for long.”

“Well, perhaps it would be best to wait a while,” he advised.

“Mr. Adams, do you think that it would be possible for me to get a job in Singapore or Kuala Lumpur so that I could stay out here?” she asked.

“If you sold the house you wouldn’t need to earn your living, and I’ve no doubt you’ll getting married before too long.”

“I can’t very well count on that, can I?
”
she asked, laughing. “Besides, I would have to have some sort of work to do. Nobody leads a life of complete leisure nowadays. And I wouldn’t want to sell the house to just anyone.”

“Your godfather’s collection of jade is worth a very large sum of money,” he pointed out. “That alone would bring a price that would enable you to stay in this house for a considerable length of time. In the past few years a number of connoisseurs have offered most generous amounts for individual pieces. There would be no difficulty in finding a buyer.”

“Yes, I’ve already thought about that,” said Vivien. “But I think it should go to a museum if it goes anywhere. I don’t like the idea of making money out of something that took my godfather years to build up.”

They continued their discussion until teatime, after which Mr. Adams retired to his room and Vivien supervised the arrangements for her little dinner party. She had had a long consultation with the cook earlier in the day, and they had agreed on a menu beginning with bird’s nest soup, a great Chinese delicacy, and ending with pineapple mousse. The pi
e
ce de resistance was to be a roast suckling pig. Ah Kim had arranged a sunburst of bronze tiger lilies for the table centerpiece, and the youngest houseboy was busily stringing colored
-
paper lanterns across the courtyard.

Having seen that everything was ready, Vivien went to her room to change. She had decided to wear a dress of primrose organza with a halter neckline and a very full skirt supported by several petticoats of stiff tarlatan. The waist was bound by a sash of jade green gauze with loose ends that floated down to the hem of her dress. She had seen the design in an old copy of a
French fashion magazine in the restaurant of Mauping’s one European-style store, and the Chinese tailor had copied it perfectly for a fraction of what the original model must have cost.