The Reluctant Guest (12 page)

Storr was back, and taking over the cocktail bar. Then a man in stained slacks and a cream shirt came up into the veranda, a man a little above average height who had a ruddy complexion, a clipped ginger moustache and a head of ginger hair. He beamed upon Ann, touched his wife’s shoulder in passing and pumped Storr’s hand. Victor Wenham was a simple man, Ann guessed. He adored his wife and children, had a deep, ineradicable affection for his farm and an air of serenity that was enviable.

“Well, this is great,” he said happily, when they were all seated and had raised glasses in salute. “Hazel’s been fuming, in case you should go back to Johannesburg without calling here.”

“I don’t fume, Vic, dear, I just smoulder a little. I don’t remember any time when you haven’t come over the first day after your arrival at Groenkop, Storr. What kept you this time?”

“For one thing, I intended staying longer and could take my time.”

“Well, that’s good news. How is the place looking?” “Pretty good. Five hundred
acres alongside my boundary have come on the market and I’m buying them.”

“Sounds promising. Why should you increase your acreage if you’re immersed
in aviation?”

“But I’m not. I’m going to make a few changes at Groenkop—not yet, but within
a year or so. By the way, you could have come up to see me—or didn’t it occur to
you?”

“We didn’t know if you were alone there. Besides, we’re quite a unit to shift about.” Hazel subsided further into her chair. “I told Vic at breakfast I thought you’d come today.”

“Dar
ling
,”
said her husband, “if I remember correctly you mentioned something drastic you’d do if he didn
’
t come today.”

“It’s the same thing,” she returned blandly. “I suppose I ought to tell the houseboy there’ll be two extra for lunch,, but he always prepares enough for a dozen, anyway; he knows we often have unexpected guests. Ann, if you eve
r
think of marrying a farmer, get the right outlook before you plunge. But then you wouldn’t marry a farmer, woul
d
you?”

Ann
colored faintly, was conscious of Storr’s slightly mocking smile as he awaited her answer. “I don’t think the man’s work would have much to do with it,” she said.

Vic Wenham, leaning forward, clapped a hand on his, knee. “Good for you. These Peterson clever-dicks try to put people like us in our place, but they don’t succeed every time.”

Hazel laughed. “Vic always says I’m the clever one of the family, but actually the only really clever thing I’ve ever done was to make him marry me. I’ve told him that point-blank many times, but he’ll never believe it.”

“That’s because he’s a romantic,” said Storr. “There are still a few left
.
”

“And none of them named, Peterson,” sighed Hazel dramatically. “Never mind, Storr; there may be compensations, and there’s one very good effect it has on us
—
we don’t marry young.”

“S
o
me of you,” said Vic Wenham pointedly, “don’t marry at all.”

Storr smiled, as if the talk were merely froth; obviously he had no intention of committing himself.

Hazel lifted her shoulders. “Storr’s too old a hand to be drawn.” Then suddenly, “What do you make of him, Ann?” For an alarmed moment Ann said nothing. Then she leaned back and replied evenly, “I haven’t decided. He has theories that set my teeth on edge, a mightier-than-thou attitude that makes me militant and an air of indifference that puzzles me, to say the least.”

Storr stretched his long legs, indolently. “There must be something on the other side of the scale, to balance up.”

“Yes, there is. A slice of humor, another of generosity and a hunk of integrity.”

“What, no charm?” he said.

“Just a veneer.”

Hazel laughed. “You know, Ann, you’re the first girl I’ve ever heard say just what she thinks to Storr. It’s because you’re not involved with him in any way, I suppose.”

“I object to that”—but Storr still sounded lazy. “I don’t get involved with women.”

“That doesn’t mean they’re not tangled up with you,” responded his cousin. “When an unmarried girl meets a well-off bachelor she instantly sums him up as a husband. If he’ll do, she’s involved. Take my word for it.”

“You cold-blooded wench,” said her husband. “You don’t mean a thing you’re saying!”

“Of course not, pet. You should know.”

But
Ann
was sure that Hazel had meant every syllable. In her smiling, uncaring fashion she was stating her own philosophy. She had had her feverish love affair and got over it; and later on she had found Vic Wenham, and because he was the kind of man she knew she could trust and live with for the rest of her life, she had made a play for him and he was sunk. But how t
h
e man enjoyed being sunk!

The twins came in then, grubby and panting. Prince, it seemed, was now confined in the cattle kraal, and the dogs were shut up in a bam. Anyone who was interested could come along and see the puppies.

“You come, Storr!” begged Fem, her round pink and gold face grave and imploring. “I think one puppy is sick.”

“Do you know what they’ll do when they grow up?” he said as he rose. “They’ll roam the pastures, kill the lambs, steal chickens and have to be shot.”

“But these,” the child stated reasoningly, “are going to be
tame
wild dogs.” She looked at Ann and added politely, “You can come too, if you like.

“Of course she’s coming,” said Storr. “One of the things she’s missed is life in the raw.
”

An
exasperating statement, but Ann didn
’
t rise to it. She got up and, with a smile at Hazel and her husband, went down into the garden with Storr and the children. They walked round the side of the house, and then Fern hopped ahead with Timothy in tow. There was an archway dripping with golden shower, and Storr held the flowering strands aside for Ann and let them drop behind him.

The garden sloped away gently. A lawn with a paved path round it, hedges of plumbago and tecoma, wild corners where Karoo succulents jostled spineless prickly pear, an arbour massed with climbers, an old bird bath set in crazy paving that sprouted rock flowers and miniature creepers.

“It looks as if it’s been here for ages,” Ann said. “And from this angle the house looks old, too.”

“It’s about thirty-five years old. Vic bought the place when he married Hazel, and she did all the modernizing at the front and in the kitchen. The rest of the farmhouse is unaltered.”

They went down stone steps into a pasture, took the path which had been worn across it, towards the white bam and sheds. Fern was waiting at the stable-type door of one of the sheds, impatiently beckoning them to come on. As they reached the child she hooked an arm over the lower half of the door and pulled the bolt. The door swung inwards, and with a theatrical gesture the little girl waved towards the occupants of the shed.

In a
corner
stood a large deep box floored with an old blanket, and nearby, among straw, crawled four puppies which were already showing the pointed ears and nose of their species. They were a nondescript brown and very silky, and one of them was more venturesome than the
others. It tottered towards the kneeling Timothy and scrabbled its way up his shorts to his waist. The little boy’s eyes beamed happily.

Ann,
crouching at his side, smiled at him. “I believe he knows you, Timothy. He likes the feel of your hands.”

“He never goes to Fern,” the little boy said proudly.

“They’d all come to me if I taught them to,” his sister said impatiently. “Look, Storr, the tiniest one is sick.”

Storr picked up the puppy in one hand, opened its mouth to
reaming
the gums. “He’s just drowsy. Being the smallest he needs more sleep than the others.”

“Why should he?”

“I sleep more than you do,” said Timothy.

“You’re younger,” she stated pompously. “Half an hour younger.”

Storr smiled. “This is probably the youngest puppy.”

Ann
said, “You must make sure that he eats at every mealtime—don’t let him sleep through, while the others wolf the lot
.
”

“Do you know about dogs?” demanded Fern.

“I’ve always kept one. We have a ridgeback at home
—
he’s in kennels now.”

“Would you like one of these puppies?”

“Yes, but I’m afraid I can’t accept one. I live in Cape Town.”

Fern nodded understandingly, dropped the puppy she had been holding, took the weak one from Storr and placed it on the floor. Timothy was still cuddling his favourite. “I’m going to show him the farm,” he said.

Fern smiled at
him
pityingly. “Put him down. He still can’t keep his eyes open in the light.”

Ann heard herself saying, as she straightened, “But it might develop his sense of smell, mightn’t it, Timothy? And he does like to be held.”

The little boy gazed up at her with obvious pleasure. “Yes.” he said. “I’ll take him for a walk.”

He wandered off, and as the others came out into the sunshine and the door was bolted, Storr looked at Ann with a taunt in his smile.

“You’re quite some girl, Miss Calvert,” he said softly. “You’d turn him into an individual in no time.”

“I didn’t even
think
of that,” she said quickly. “Really I didn’t!”

“I don’t believe you did—it was automatic. Don’t excuse it, Pretty Ann. I liked it
.
”

A warm glow which had nothing to do with the elements ran through
Ann’s
body. She looked away from him, and Fern provided the necessary diversion. She had opened the door of the next shed, and out tumbled an assortment of dogs. They leapt and yelped, tore across the pasture and back again in a frenzy of liberation. But one of them let out a most ferocious crescendo of barking and dived into a bush. There was a scuffle, animal screams, and Storr wrenched the branches apart to reveal a scene which froze
Ann’s
blood. The dog, an Alsati
a
n, had an animal in his mouth and he was shaking the life out of it. It was quite a large beast, rounded, beautifully spotted and squealing with terror at the top of its lungs.

Storr grabbed the Alsatian, gripped the back of its jaws and forced them wider and still wider, till the struggling victim literally hurled itself to the ground. Then Storr flung the big dog from him with such force that the animal understood he was in disgrace. For a long moment he stood there, licking his jaws and panting, and then, in the manner of
Als
at
ians
who meet their match, he did not surrender but lowered himself to the ground, to watch.

Storr picked up the leopard cub, and without thinking,
Ann
took it and cradled it in her arm. There were spots of blood on its throat and back, but it was more affronted than hurt. Suddenly it hissed at the dog and took a leap, but
Ann
was holding on to its forepaws and it couldn’t get away. The next second it had turned upon her.

Furiously, Storr grabbed the cub by the scruff and lunged with it across to the shed from which the dogs had hurtled. He thrust it inside and slammed the door, came back swiftly to Ann.

“Hurt you at all?” he demanded.

“No. I t
hink
you saved me a nasty bite.”

“They shouldn’t keep a damned leopard!” He slipped an arm across her shoulder. “You’re trembling a bit, and
I don’t wonder.” He turned to Fern, who had stood, an interested spectator of the whole episode, under a nearby tree. ‘Tell your mother we’re going for a stroll, Fern. Shan’t be long.”

Fern nodded sagely. “I forgot Spotty was about when we let the dogs out of the shed. We generally have to find
him
and put
him
away somewhere.”

“Now that you’ve seen what happens when they meet,” said Storr a little grimly, “you’ll take more care, won’t you?”

“Well, Spotty’s going soon, anyway. He’s going to live with his brother in a private zoo.” And she sauntered off.

The following half-hour or so was one of the sweetest
Ann
had ever known. Storr showed her the horses and a good view of the lands, took her down the side of a small ravine where euphorbias and dwarf firs grew among the more lush kaffirbooms and proteas. He helped her to dislodge a root or two of rock-rose which she wanted to place in pots and take back home with her.

When they returned to the house the dining table was set, and Hazel, with a scarlet apron over her old slacks, was helping the Xhosa maid to serve the children at their own small table. After a container had been found for the
p
lants
and Ann and Storr had washed, the four adults had lunch and drank coffee, talked and smoked.