White Heat (6 page)

‘Mr. Willoughby?’

‘Yes.’ Karin examined her nails hastily. ‘It was kind of him, wasn’t it?’

Anthea Makepiece appeared to consider the matter. She looked puzzled.

‘Captain Brown was speaking about him,’ she revealed. ‘He was the only one who received an invitation to his party who didn’t turn up. I realize, of course, that he probably considers he doesn’t
have
to accept invitations of that
sort ...
but it was a little rude of him not to send an excuse. And a short time before you went ashore I heard him say quite distinctly to that manservant of his that he had seen as much of Capetown as he wished to see in one lifetime, and would be spending the afternoon in the ship’s library. I wonder what caused him to
change
his mind?’ and she looked thoughtfully sideways at Karin.

Karin declared hurriedly that she had not the least idea.

Ahead of them, just before they reached the revolving glass doors that admitted them to the dining
-
saloon, they saw Kent Willoughby himself, beautifully turned out by his manservant, as usual, for the evening. He was
the sort of man who always had a
light tan, but the past two weeks had given him a superb additional coating of bronze, and he really looked intensely attractive in a smooth, polished, very masculine way as, head and shoulders above everyone around him, he inched his way towards the dining-saloon.

Mrs. Makepiece made a point of according him an extremely condescending nod as he glanced backwards
and caught her eye.
To her surprise he stood aside and waited for her and Karin to catch up with him, and then he smiled with a somewhat cynical flash of his excellent white teeth and inquired whether she liked
being jostled on the way to her meals.

‘I always feel like an animal at the zoo at feeding time,’ he remarked. ‘But at least the English don’t drool at the mouth when they hear the dinner-gong,’ with a disparaging glance at a blunt-headed German who was literally licking his lips at the thought of the well-covered menu that would be presented to him when he finally reached his table. ‘They just manage to refrain from that!’

Mrs. Makepiece, who was never one to harbour a grievance, and could grasp at an olive branch when it was offered to her, answered immediately with an eager smile.

‘How right you are, Mr. Willoughby. But it must be the sea air that makes us all so hungry. I’m sure I’ve put on pounds since I came aboard, but I don’t dare weigh myself. I simply don’t dare!’

Kent looked directly at Karin, and smiled at her with a subtly different expression in his face. He murmured for her ear alone as he came up close behind her:

‘Does your weight ever fluctuate, Miss Hammond? You look to me as if it would be a simple matter to pass you through a wedding ring at any time!’

After dinner Karin was one of the first to make her escape to her cabin, and once there she sought to make up her mind how she would pass the evening. She could rejoin Mrs. Makepiece and watch her play bridge, she could select a comfortable corner of a settee for herself and read
—
the public rooms were usually cooler than it was on deck, except after the sun had set
— o
r she could make her way up to her favourite corner of the boat-deck and watch the
Ariadne
, having refuelled, get under way again.

As it was a brilliant sunset, and she was much fonder of sunsets than she was of ships and the movements of ships, she went up to the boat-deck to watch the last of it. Tom Paget had been one of the last to leave the shore, having apparently lost himself much more completely than Karin had done, and he was still in the dining-saloon, so she could count on being undisturbed for a quarter of an hour at least. After that Tom, like a tracker dog, would follow her up to the boat deck.

She leant on the rail and felt bemused by the beauty of the evening light. Despite the fierce heat of the day there was an extraordinary tranquillity about it, as if the angry culmination of the sunset had used up powers that could wither and destroy. In Capetown the white-hot sunlight had seemed to smite the pavements like an angry sword, and after exposure to it for a short time inexperienced travellers like herself felt limp and exhausted. Even now, after a bath, a rest, and an excellent dinner, she felt glad of the support of the rail, as if some vital quality deep within herself had been partially used up.

But the evening calm was like a benediction. The sky was still streaked with rose where the sun had disappeared, but it was no longer a lurid rose. There was a gentleness about it, as if it was overlaid by gauze. Immediately overhead spread a sea of palpitating blue with a strange luminosity about it, and as Karin put back her head to gaze up at it she felt as if it was an actual sea that could engulf her, and on which it would be a joy to float as the first stars floated.

She concentrated on one of the stars, and decided that the atmosphere was still too hot to allow it to be brilliant. One moment it was there, and the next it appeared to fade. But later it would shine forth triumphantly like a diamond on a bed of violet velvet.

Below her the water slapped softly against the sides of the ship. She looked down. The
Ariadne
was proceeding on her voyage once more, and the decks were vibrating again as the engines turned. To Karin the stillness when the engines stopped had seemed extraordinary, and having only just grown accustomed to it she found it difficult to adjust herself to the uncanny silence.

But now the life-blood of the ship was pulsing again, and they were making good headway in the evening calm. They were leaving other ships behind ... the lights that streamed from port-hole windows, the riding-lights of smaller craft. She could even make out car lights far away on distant roads inland.

Footsteps came along the deck behind, and they were moving so purposefully she had no doubt at all that it was Tom who had probably skipped coffee and raced up to join her. Without turning, and with a light breeze lifting the ends of her hair on her forehead, she spoke as if she was under a kind of spell.

‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘All the ugliness
blotted out by the majesty of night!’

‘I didn’t realize Capetown struck you as ugly,’ a mildly amused voice answered ... and it was certainly not the voice of Tom Paget. ‘When I came upon you this afternoon you appeared to me to be transfixed by the scenery.’

She wheeled round swiftly, and confronted him. ‘You!’ she said. ‘I thought it was Tom.’

‘I know. I told him I saw you disappearing in the direction of your cabin. Mind?’

She shook her head.

‘No. Why should I?’

He regarded her with a faintly quizzical gleam in his eyes. The night was deepening rapidly, as it always does in those latitudes, and already it seemed as if they were wrapped about with swathes of shadowy chiffon. Above them, in that marvellous sky, the stars were gathering brilliance.

‘I don’t think I can answer that one,’ he replied. He leaned on the rail and produced his cigarette-case. ‘It all depends on how well you’ve got to know one another in the past few days.’

‘It’s more than that,’ she returned, as if it was important. ‘It’s more than a week.’

‘Well, it all depends on how well you’ve got to know one another in more than a week.’

‘We’re good friends,’ she replied, instantly feeling on the defensive.

‘Splendid.’ His tone was soft, drawling.

‘We’re not
lovers,
if that’s what you’re implying,’ in
a sharp voice.

‘Splendid,’ he said again, and this time she had the feeling that he meant it. ‘Look!’ He indicated the distant lights. ‘You won’t see South Africa again until you return to England. By the way, what did you mean just now when you spoke about the majesty of the night hiding all the ugliness? Were you referring to the social set-up, or didn’t you like the architecture? Most people think those buildings are attractive.’

‘I wasn’t referring either to the social set-up or the buildings,’ she admitted. ‘I was thinking of that moment when you made me aware I was being stared
at ...
and I don’t think I’ve stopped thinking about it since,’ with an uncontrollable shudder.

He tapped the end of his cigarette on the teak handrail.

‘Then stop thinking about it,’ he advised. ‘After all, you’re a sight for sore eyes, you know. You can’t blame a few coloured men for staring at you.’

‘I wasn’t thinking about colour.’

‘You just don’t like being stared at?’

‘Not in that way. Not by men!’

He tossed the cigarette he had just lighted over the rail, and the blackness of the sea extinguished it at once. He laid a hand lightly
—
very lightly
—
on her shoulder.

‘Oh, come now!’ he said, in a humouring tone, ‘you don’t honestly expect me to believe that women stare at one another? Not in admiration? And those were admiring looks. Besides,’ on a note of censure, ‘I’ve already told you it was your own fault. The next time you go ashore you will not be permitted to go alone.
’

‘No?’ and she dimpled at him through the dusk.

Her hand was resting lightly on the rail, and a baby ray of starlight picked out the stone in the ring on one of her fingers. His eye alighted on it.

‘That’s a pretty ring you wear,’ he remarked. ‘I’ve noticed you seem to wear it all the time. Has it any special significance?’

‘What, this?’ She sounded surprised. It was the ring that had belonged to Ian Maxton’s mother, and which he had insisted on her accepting. ‘Well, not really.
’

‘You mean it does have a particular significance?
’

She thought for a minute, and then she shook her head. Her hesitation was due to the fact that she had been fond of Ian’s mother.

‘A friend gave it to me,’ she said.

'A man friend?’

‘Yes.
’

‘I see.’ He turned away, and for one second she thought he was going to leave her. And then he obviously changed his mind and turned back to her again. ‘Ah, well,’ he observed, with a kind of resigned sigh in the words, ‘I told you just now that you were a sight for sore eyes, didn’t I? And obviously the young man is taking no chances.
’

‘But it wasn
’
t a young man ... I mean, it
isn’t
a young man
,’
she objected.

‘But it was a man?
’

‘A man gave it to me
—
a young man
—
but the ring belonged to his mother. He felt she would like me to wear it
—
have it as a keepsake.’

‘Because you and she were friends?’

‘We were very good friends.’

‘And you don’t plan to marry the son in order to gratify a wish of the mother? Perhaps an unspoken wish before she died?’

‘
No, no, no!
I do not plan to marry the son in order to gratify an unspoken wish of his mother,’ she enunciated with great distinctness.

Suddenly he put back his head and laughed. It was the most natural, genuinely amused
l
ighthearted laugh she had yet heard from him, and it surprised her ... particularly on top of the grating harshness that had just been in his voice.

‘Do you know,’ he confessed, leaning against the rail and gazing up at the sky, ‘I feel more carefree tonight than I’ve felt for a long time ... a very long time! I even feel, at this moment, as if I haven’t a care in the world!’ and he lowered his green glance and smiled at her. ‘Do you suppose it can have anything to do with the fact that we’re in solitary occupation of the boat-deck?’

She studied him for a moment with serious eyes, and then shook her head.

‘I shouldn’t think so.’

‘You lack conceit, child,’ he told her, and then once more put back his shapely head with the hint of red in the hair. ‘Do you know anything about astronomy?’ he asked. ‘It’s a fascinating subject when you get down
to it ... or so
I’m told. All I know is that I like looking at stars, but I’m never very good at picking out constellations like the plough, and so forth. When we get into the Indian Ocean you might, if you’re lucky, see the Southern Cross. I’ll show you.’

‘Oh, I’d like that!’ she exclaimed, on a note of excitement. ‘Would you?’ Despite the smoothness
—
even glassiness
—
of the water through which they were ploughing their way, the ship gave a slight lurch which seemed to coincide with a little burst of energy on the part of its engines, and Karin staggered slightly and was prevented from hurting herself by coming up against Kent Willoughby. His arm went round her instantly, and she could feel him supporting her strongly.

‘It’s surprising how quickly one loses one’s sea-legs,’ he remarked.

He did not remove his arm, and she stood there under cover of the velvety night with her hair blowing softly against his face and the delicate perfume she used making a direct assault upon his nostrils. She could feel him stiffen slightly after a minute, but she still did not detach herself.

Instead she looked round and up at him, and the rising moon showed
h
er the sudden grimness of his face.

‘You don’t like women, do you?’ she said softly.

He looked down at her. She could feel his hand bruising her bare arm, but his eyes were as withdrawn as the far-away stars.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You don’t
—
really
—
like women! Or did one woman disappoint you so badly that you can’t get over it?’

‘Even if she did, it’s nothing to do with you,’ he told her curtly.

‘But the fact that I’m wearing a ring given to me by a friend is nothing to do with you. Yet you’ve asked me a lot of questions about my ring!’

‘
Touché
!’
he exclaimed grudgingly, and then he put her from him and walked to the rail. He stood staring out at the blackness that was rapidly giving place to the magic of moonlight, and a moon-bathed sea, and he spoke with a kind of angry impetuosity. ‘However, I don’t intend to let you into the secrets of my murky past, my sweet, so I
must
ask you to curb your curiosity. You’re pretty and appealing, and I’m willing to believe you’re more or less what you seem to be, but when I want a shoulder to cry on it won’t be your somewhat inadequate one, my child!’

She stiffened instantly. She was angry with herself for having fallen into a trap.

‘Don’t worry,’ she returned, with a feminine waspishness she would never up till now have believed herself capable of, ‘my inadequate shoulder is unlikely to be available for your extremely adult confessions! And when I said you didn’t like women I wasn’t asking you to reveal how much you dislike them. I was simply letting you know that I do
know
!’

His anger had spent itself, and he turned and laughed
at her gently.

‘You’re an infant,’ he said.

‘Then in that case you’re not in any danger, are you?’ she said, and her retort was so prompt that it amused him still more ... and gave him pause for a moment.

‘No, I’m not,’ he replied at last. ‘Not in the least!’

They were dancing on the lower deck, and strains of dance music came up to them. Normally, Karin loved to dance, and she loved the exciting rhythms that fitted in so well with the palpitating beauty of such a night as this; but having heard herself described as an infant by the only man on board who could have kept her chained to his side for as long as five seconds, let alone a full minute and a half, and who was the one man on board with whom every woman would have wished to dance if she had been consulted about the matter beforehand, and then heard herself dismissed lightly as completely innocuous
—
sweet and appealing, but absolutely safe from a rich man’s point of view!
—
she experienced an overwhelming and extraordinary reaction. The dance music, the tap-tapping of feet on the deck below them, the beat of the drums, actually seemed an offence. The purple beauty of the night was an offence, too, and the knowledge that she had that she had laid herself open to a humiliating rebuff.

‘I’m going to my cabin,’ she announced stiffly. ‘I think it’s growing a little cool up here.’

‘Do you?’ He was leaning on the rail, and smoking his cigarette. ‘Well, I’ve no doubt you’ll find Tom looking for you somewhere. You seem to have made a deep impression on that young man. But I wouldn’t advise you to get seriously involved with him.
Never get involved with a man you meet on a long voyage
!’