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‘Well, well, well, you’ve been busy, I see.’ Nigel’s arms dropped to his sides. ‘It didn’t take you long, girl.’ Turning to Hugo, he said, ‘By now, you’ll know all about Tirza’s peacock in the jungle dream—and the screaming that goes along with it.’

‘Hugo,’ Tirza’s voice rose, ‘don’t listen to him, please! He only knows about the dream because I
told
him about it. You’ve got to believe me. It’s the truth! You had a nerve coming here, Nigel!’

‘I prefer to call it—irony.’ He laughed softly. ‘Well, well, I’ve learned a thing or two about women. You can never rely on them. And to think I thought you’d come here to cry over me in this exotic setting and in the isolation that money can buy!’

‘Hugo, please, don’t listen to him,’ Tirza begged again, and then her thoughts turned to ice when he said,

‘Look, I’m not given to screaming hysterics, or the screaming that goes along with your peacock dreams, but I am interested in one thing,’ he glanced at his watch, ‘in five minutes you’ll be out of here.’ He pushed past them on his way into the hall.

‘I’ve come all this way,’ said Nigel. ‘Just don’t be pokey, Tirza. I’ve come all this way just to be with you. Isn’t that enough?’

Her slap across his cheek took him by surprise and he stumbled backwards, and she took this opportunity to close the heavy door in his face. Sagging against the door, she stood there, with silent tears running down her cheeks, until she heard Nigel’s car start and drive off.

When she had control of herself she went in search of Hugo and found him in the indoor patio. He was standing in front of the arched windows, with their ginger and white striped awnings.

‘He’s gone,’ she said, in a diminished voice. ‘Please let me explain ...’

‘You intended to go on seeing this man behind my back, all the time, didn’t you?’ His eyes were like ice.

‘No. No, I didn’t.’

‘And you’d even been to bed with him. The fact that he was a married man meant nothing to you.’

‘I have never been to bed with him! I told Nigel about the dream, I tell you. I only
told
him ... once when we were talking about these things.’

‘Save it,’ he shrugged. ‘I have no intention of believing that, either. You’re more calculating than I thought. Anyway, I’m not quite the fool you took me for. You’ll come back to Cape Town with me,
before we’re married.
To hell with a special licence! Why should I settle for anything second rate—even if you happen to be that—we’ll be married in great pomp and style in Cape Town. Papa Harper will lay it on ...
thick'

When he kissed her roughly, relief that he was not leaving her surged through her, cancelling out all reason but this moment and that Hugo was still here with her. ‘Hugo,’ she said brokenly, ‘I—love you.’

He released her suddenly. ‘Don’t make a stage of this situation, Tirza. It isn’t necessary. Can’t you understand—I merely want to make love to you.

It’s a marriage in the interest of business, after all.’ His voice was brutal, and she shook her head slowly, as if to throw off all the confusion she was feeling at this moment.

She spent the rest of the evening alone in her room, clearing everything from her ivory louvre-doored cupboards as she intended taking her possessions back with her to Cape Town. Fortunately, she thought, with considerable bitterness, there were cases in which to pack them, left behind by her father at some time or another.

When she was a small girl, she remembered, and in fact right up to the present time her father’s expensive luggage always served as a grim reminder and threat that he would be going off on another business trip, at a moment’s notice, leaving her behind with only Mrs Meeker and the servants for company.

She also spent time thinking about what a useless life she had led, and she brooded on Hugo and resolutely refused to listen to the small voice that demanded to know what real future there could be in this marriage for either of them.

Before
they left in the morning, Tirza gazed round the elegant drawing-room. In this room, with the rich golden and bejewelled colours, blue-and-white Delftware in white alcoves on either side of the white fireplace, pieces of brass and copper and Persian carpets on gold carpeting, Hugo had mixed their drinks before dinner at night. It was, she thought wistfully, a room full of memories—some of them good, some of them bad.

‘Are you ready?’ His voice startled her and she swung round to look at him.

‘You—startled me,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry.’ His voice was abrupt.

She began groping in her bag for her sunglasses, but before she put them on, they stood looking at one another... strangers, although they had known what it was to be totally absorbed in one another.

‘I managed to get my father on the phone, by the way,’ she told him. ‘He—he knows I’m coming home to be married.’

‘I hope you didn’t tell him
why
you’re to be married,’ his voice was hard and mocking. ‘It would hardly be fair to tell him that this is your way of starting a very successful weaving industry, along with my know-how and that anything Papa does, Tirza can do better.’

She was wearing black trousers, tight-cut over her slender hips, and a white shirt with a wide, extravagant collar. Her tawny hair appeared bleached in places by the sun, and her smooth skin was tanned an attractive biscuit brown, but her face was pale. It revealed nothing except a sense of fashion, but her green eyes showed the hurt.

‘I was very tactful, don’t worry. He took it very well.’

The sun blazed down on the Karroo and its strange compelling solitude. They were leaving the purple and khaki landscape behind and Tirza found herself wondering whether they would ever return, in fact, to the place where, like a cactus flower, she had been content to bask in the warmth of it, with Hugo always close at hand. The weaving industry, which had been so important to her, seemed like a vague dream.

Cape Town bustled with its own affairs, and she realised that she didn’t even know where her future husband’s office was—let alone his house.

Pigeons flew over the city and strutted about arrogantly on the ledges of buildings. Mist drifted away from the ‘tablecloth’ and fell in folds down the cliffs of Table Mountain and then, when it reached a certain distance level, it was dissipated by the hotter air below. On top of the mountain, however, the ‘cloth’ did not grow smaller but remained spread out along its huge bulk.

Douglas Harper was in his study when they arrived and, pausing in the doorway, Tirza said, ‘Hi, D.H.’ She undid the scarf she had tied about her hair. There was a confused moment and then she said, ‘This is Hugo—Hugo Harrington—the man I’m going to marry, D.H.’

‘I won’t say I’m not surprised.’ Douglas Harper looked very handsome with hair the colour of pewter, a tanned face and blazing blue eyes. ‘I am.’ He held out his hand and the blue eyes went over his future son-in-law. ‘So you’re going to take my daughter from me, are you?’ He looked suddenly stricken, but recovered himself immediately. ‘I know I’m seldom home, but it’s too late to rectify that. When I
am
at home, though, Tirza is always the first person I look for, believe me. After all, she’s the only person in my life.’

Because it was expected of him Hugo said, ‘Well, you’ll be gaining a son-in-law, after all.’

‘I’m surprised to find you at home,’ Tirza said, without thinking. ‘I mean, I wasn’t able to give a specific time, I didn’t know quite when we’d arrive.’

‘I have a meeting later,’ her father answered. ‘I won’t be free to dine with you, unfortunately.’ He glanced at Hugo.

‘I hadn’t planned on dining here,’ Hugo told him. ‘You see, my housekeeper has been alerted. She’ll be expecting me. I just wanted to deliver your daughter in one piece, safe and sound. She very nearly got trampled by a herd of elephants, however. Didn’t you?’ He lifted a strand of her hair.

‘In Swaziland? You did go to Swaziland first, though, didn’t you, before going on to the farm? Where did this happen?’

‘Yes, D.H., I did. I met your Cathy, of course, and then we all went on to the Kruger National Park. And Hugo is exaggerating.’

‘How did you find her—Cathy, I mean!’

‘Oh, fine. Paige, too, of course.’ If only you knew, she thought with sudden fury.

The strangest part about everything, Tirza found herself thinking after it was all over, was that Hugo and her father had got along, from the beginning.

Before he had left Hugo had said, ‘Lunch tomorrow? You must choose an engagement ring
—
and a wedding ring to go with it, of course.’

‘I hadn’t thought about it,’ she felt herself begin to fluster.

‘Well, I had, as a matter of fact. So be ready, will you?’ He kissed her lightly on the mouth.

And then, with her hair drawn back and gathered at the neck in a loose knot and huge sunglasses hiding her eyes and most of her face, she had lunched with him. She was a polished, beautiful woman now, cool and composed, with a shell about her. Outwardly, anyway.

After lunch, she chose an emerald and diamond ring and a plain gold band.

The following evening Hugo surprised her again by turning up without letting her know.

‘Gerry Strauss rang me today, at my office. He hadn’t been able to contact you or your father,’ he told her.

‘We were out,’ she said, her green eyes widening with fear. ‘What did he have to say, Hugo?’

‘Don’t worry, I have good news for you, Tirza. You can forget about rabid dogs—and all that goes along with them.’

The relief was so great that she was silent for so long that he said anxiously, taking her by the shoulders, ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered, then she began to cry and put her head on his shoulder, but he made no attempt to hold her or to kiss her, and after a while she drew back from him.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘I think you’ve been very patient,’ he told her, enfolding her with his arms now.

‘Well,’ she touched her cheeks with her fingertips, ‘coming from
you
that’s quite something.’

‘I’m not as bad as all that,’ Hugo said softly. ‘Am I?’ He placed his fingers beneath her chin and tilted her face up to his own.

‘B-by the way,’ she moved away, ‘the wedding invitations are being printed and my father has been in touch with the best caterers. Actually, he went to some fuss. Caterers were considered and then discarded, just like that, until he felt quite satisfied.’ She had spoken nervously and sounded highly-strung. And then she hurried on, ‘It all seems so unreal. I—I’m a fool, Hugo, to be going through with this marriage. It will never work. It is, after all, nothing more than an—arrangement.’

‘It’s going to be an arrangement that’s going to work, and what’s more, it will be a permanent arrangement. It’s going to be very real and very final, so bank on that for the future,’ he told her.

‘I think it’s a fairly safe assumption to say that I
have
banked on it, and that’s what has worried me. I’m not sure about you. I certainly don’t want to be married more than once, Hugo.’

‘Good. Neither do I,’ he said. ‘And so we’ll have to make this one work. I want to take you to the house tomorrow. Maggie and Joseph September are looking forward to meeting you.’

‘Well, yes, I want to meet them too, of course.’

Her first glimpse of Hugo’s house created instant excitement. At an angle she had never seen it before, Table Mountain looked spectacular in the dusk, as it loomed up to one side of the property which was at the end of a long, steep drive.

On the patio there were white tables and chairs, cushioned in rust-coloured material which would, Tirza knew, blend with the pine-wooded slopes of the mountain in the sunshine. Several white plant-holders had tall plants growing in them, with leaves like green bayonets.

The couple who ran Hugo’s home for him came out to meet them.

‘This is the future Mrs Harrington,’ Hugo told them, smiling. ‘Tirza, I’ve told you about Maggie and Joseph September.’

For a few moments they stood talking about the view and the garden, of which Joseph September was very proud, and the tension eased a little. Hugo then guided Tirza up three wide steps to the verandah where black, intricately-scrolled wrought-iron chairs were cushioned in black, patterned with outsize red flowers and vivid green leaves. Sliding doors were open to the lounge, which exuded warmth and sophistication.

Tirza’s gaze roved about the room. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said. There was a magnificent copper canopy over the fireplace and the carved base of the low table was, quite obviously, a Mexican antique. The sofas on either side of the fireplace were low-slung and covered in oatmeal coloured tweed and this material was repeated in the curtaining, forming an excellent background for the blending of peach, melon and pistachio on off-white carpeting. Identical lamps stood on low tables at either end of the stone fireplace, which stretched the width of one wall.

‘So this is to be my new home,’ she murmured.

‘Do you like it—so far?’ Hugo’s voice was abrupt.

‘Yes, very much.’

‘In that case, we’ll have a drink. I’ve told Maggie we won’t be eating here, we’ll eat in town. Okay?’

‘Yes, of course.’ Her teeth were chattering and she bit her lip.

‘I’ll show you around later.’

From one of the sofas she watched him as he went to a cupboard to pour their drinks and then Maggie came into the room, carrying a tray of savouries, and when she had gone Hugo said, ‘By the way, what would you like to drink?’ It was all very formal, she thought.

‘I’d love a Cinzano, if you have it,’ she told him.

‘I do have it.’

As he passed her the glass their fingertips touched.

‘You’ve changed your perfume today,’ Hugo observed.

‘Yes, I have.’ Was that all he had to say? she found herself thinking.

And then, as she sat sipping at her drink and settled in an elegant heap of soft apricot silk pleats in the comer of the oatmeal wool sofa, her eyes met his, over the rim of the glass.