Winds of Enchantment (3 page)

“Packed. I was going straight up to bed.” She ran and knelt on the rug in front of the living-room fire.

“Cold?” He came and stood over her.

She shook her head. “I—I didn’t expect to see you again before we start,” she observed.

“I watched Bill go out. I knew this was my last chance to see you alone. There’ll be others at the boat.”

“Let’s have a sherry.” She felt him watching her as she went to the sideboard. She heard his step, then before she could turn, or move away, he had bent and kissed the tousled hair at the nape of her neck. “No!” she said huskily. “No, Steve.”

“You know how I feel, don’t you?” His voice was hungry behind her, she felt his hands close on her arms.

She pulled free of him, and relief surged as the gate crashed and Bill came singing up the front path.

“You’re marrying Celia,” she said urgently to Steve. “You can’t have it both ways.”

Now she was looking at him, seeing his face
torn
by conflicting emotions.

“Why did you have to grow up, Pat?” he groaned.

“You asked me that once before.” She handed him his glass of sherry, and took a sip at her own. It tasted bitter, not sweet, and her throat was hurting her. “Let’s drink to each other’s future,” she suggested. “Let’s hope we’ll both find happiness along the roads we’ve chosen to take.”

And whatever his answer might have been, it was never spoken. Bill entered the room, looking jovial and flushed. “That’s the ticket,” he laughed. “Drink to our journey, Steve. Wish us well.”

“Here’s wishing you well,” Steve said, his eyes fixed on Pat’s face. “I’ll write every mail and cable everything important.”

“Send us snaps of the wedding, won’t you,” Pat said lightly. “Celia will look dreamy in white satin.”

The journey out to Kanos was a long, hot sea cruise which Pat thoroughly enjoyed. She played deck tennis and swam in the pool with the other young people aboard. There were dances in the evening, and smart young officers to pay attention to the slim English girl with corn-gold hair and eyes of an amber colour. She was friendly, they found, but not inclined to flirt, and had anyone looked closely enough at her, they would have seen shadows haunting her amber eyes.

Her goodbye to Steve still lingered and caused pain, and in her cabin at night she lay reflecting on their long friendship. He had intimated on that last evening that he cared for her—Pat could not be certain of the state of her own heart. She hadn’t known many men. She would need to meet a few of the worldly sort before she could be sure of her feelings—and whatever her true feelings, Steve was marrying Celia. There was no future for
him,
come what may.

They came at last to Kanos, and from the boat Pat saw a city of white buildings and palm-fringed avenues. The steely African sky stretched above and beyond it to the green jungle. Between the liner and the shore, mudflats emerged raked by the roots of mangroves and in the rivers between them the native boys were fishing from boats with fibre nets, while their woman waded out to scoop shellfish into shallow baskets. There was a haze of heat, a hundred smells in the air, and noise.

Left of the port straggle, there were wharves and traders’ sheds, and still farther to the left a small white colony, composed chiefly of traders. A few houses fronted the beaten sea road, set well apart in hedged plots.

It was to one of these dwellings that Pat drove with her father. Built of white-distempered mud and raised on stone piles, it was large and well-ventilated, though there was only a living-room, two bedrooms and a built-on kitchen. The roof, of thick palm-thatching, sloped right out to cover the veranda and provide relief from the glare of the sun.

The rooms were sparsely furnished in local woods and wicker. The beds were of iron, painted green and fitted with a framework to hold mosquito netting. Although the previous occupant had been gone only two weeks, the bedding was musty and had to be cleaned and dried before use. Pat also found other signs of disintegration, but she was not disturbed. She was learning fast that Africa was a torrid, primitive law unto itself.

There were two other women among the traders.

Both were in their forties and neither had children. Grey-haired Mrs. Melville rarely went out. Mrs. Barker had once lived among the Government officials at the other end of Kanos. She and her husband, she confided, were well-off enough to retire, but after so many years in Africa, she didn’t fancy the cool climate of England, or the servant problem.

Besides Melville and Barker, who were more or less of Bill’s type, there was Wenham, a dour individual who had once been a lawyer, and a younger man in his late twenties, Cliff Grey. Cliff was dark and brooding, and a little too fond of his drink.

With Cliff Grey, Pat was instantly at her ease. He pretended to be amused that the others could be so affected by the presence of an attractive girl. For a man not yet thirty he was extremely cynical, soaked in a kind of personal disillusion.

“Why am I here?” he said once, repeating her question. “I forged my father’s name on a cheque. You don’t believe that? Very well. I was driven here by a woman ... it comes to the same thing. I forged the cheque for a woman. You still don’t believe it? I don’t blame you. It was something far worse than either, too utterly sinister for your nice little ears.”

Pat didn’t believe that, either. She thought her father nearer the truth when he said that Cliff had come out seeking adventure and lost what it takes to get back into the world again.

Kanos was new to Bill, but just as he had given his life’s blood to Monrovia and Accra and Calabar, so he offered it now to this steaming spell-binding gate to the jungle. He was happier than she had ever seen him. From the cool shade of the veranda she would watch
him
down on the beach. Clad in shorts and singlet, a khaki sun-helmet tipped to the back of his head, he would rest his jot-book on a bale and yell orders.

The boys would load and unburden the trucks; the mountains of groundnuts would subside and rise, the barrels of palm oil dwindle and be replenished. Surf
-
boats plied between the sheds and the steamers beyond the bar. Bill would curse and laugh and sometimes exercise his vibrant baritone on ditties he never sang in the house.

Once she had gone down to help him at the sheds, but the heat of the sun, even with a breeze from the sea at her back, had nearly laid her flat.

Tornadoes swept the coast The palms threshed their fans in the endless flaming flicker of lightning; trees snapped; the house, shuttered and snug, creaked resentfully. Then came the rains.

It was on a day of relentless torrential rain that Bill was summoned by native messenger to meet an old friend at the governmental end of Kanos. The heavy curtain of rain made driving impossible, so he set off in oilskins and thigh-boots, expecting to return within a couple of hours.

The afternoon passed slowly. The clouds shut out the light, and all sounds were lost in the steady roar of falling water. Pat had the boy make her some tea. She went back to her book, but a persistent uneasiness took possession of her. The cook asked what he was to make for ‘chop’ tonight and she told him not to bother. They would eat from tins.

By eight-thirty she was sweating as much from anxiety as from the temperature. Unable to bear the suspense any longer, she dragged on stormproof and boots and tramped the surging red path to Cliff Grey’s bungalow.

He was at dinner when his boy let her in. Unperturbed, he rose and took her coat and gave it to the boy. “What’s up?” he asked, flicking a rain-bead from her cheek. “That a tear?”

“I’m frightened, Cliff.” She caught at his shirt-cuff.

“Bill went off before lunch—said he’d be a couple of hours. He hasn’t shown up yet.”

Cliff frowned. “That’s strange. Where did he go?”

“To the club at the other end of town. A message came from a man he used to know. He’d heard Bill was here.”

“Don’t worry. When men get together with a drink, to talk of old times
... he s
hrugged. “I bet you’ve had no dinner?”

“I couldn’t eat.”

“Did the messenger bring a note, or was it a verbal message?”

“A note. Bill took it with him, but I saw it first. It suggested a chat and mentioned some rare marbles picked up at Accra.”

“Marbles?” Cliff echoed.

“Does that mean something?” she asked quickly.

“Among traders it’s sometimes another name for diamonds.”

Her eyes went heavy and dark. “I—I’m going to that club.”

He sighed. “That means I’ll have to take you. Thank heaven the rain is giving over.”

The night was black and cool. In the long belt of casuarina trees that divided the wharves from the town the track was still deep in water, but when they reached the highway it was already drying. The car turned up the wide boulevard and stopped before the vine-clad pillars of the club.

“The gates of snobbery,” drawled Cliff. “Evening dress only.”

“They won’t kick me out, women are not that plentiful here,” Pat said. “Wait for me.”

There were bell-boys just inside the brightly lit vestibule. Opposite at a desk screened by potted palms, sat a half-European. Pat approached him.

Yes, Mr. Brading had lunched here with Captain Sholto. Neither of the men was a member of the club, but they had been accompanied by a member, Mr. Farland. They had left together at about three—no, he could not give the address of Mr. Farland. It was against the rules of the club to divulge information to non-members.

Pat began to insist. Two men swung through the door and immediately came to her aid. They were amused, intrigued, eager to help. “Farland lives on Winterton Terrace,” one of them volunteered. “Number three. He should be here any minute. Won’t you take a drink and wait?”

“No. It’s awfully kind of you.” She almost ran outside to Cliff and climbed in beside him. “Do you know Winterton Terrace?”

Cliff gave a whistle. “What’s Bill doing among the poobahs?” he laughed, starting the car.

“I wish I knew,” she said grimly.

Number three Winterton Terrace was a white villa half smothered in purple bougainvillaea. Pat ran up the path and rapped on the front door, which was soon opened by a houseboy who allowed her just inside the hall, then vanished into a room to the right. He rapidly returned with the news that his master would see no one.

Pat was desperate, and determined. She marched straight to the door on the right, knocked sharply and thrust it open.

She was aware of austere grey furniture, a saffron lampshade, and a man.

He jerked up from the sloping back of a long cane chair. “Who the devil are you?” he demanded.

He wore white drill trousers, a white shirt, well open at the throat to show a swathing of bandages about his shoulder, the left one.

“Forgive me,” she said. “The boy didn’t tell me you were sick.”

“I’m not. I’m resting.” His tone was curt. “I had an accident and lost some blood.”

He got up and reached his jacket from the back of a chair. Mechanically she crossed the room and helped the right arm into it, dropping the left shoulder, with its empty sleeve, into place.

He was big, tall, and she met eyes of a curiously dark hazel, flecked with green. His hair was almost black, springing in a short crisp wave from a point at the centre of his forehead. His face was hard and tanned, the brows thick, the nose jutting, and Pat had just reached his mouth, with its thin upper lip and debatable lower one, when he spoke:

“I suppose you had a reason for bursting in here?”

“I’m Patricia Brading,” she said. “I’m rather concerned about my father. Mr. Farland, you were with him this afternoon. How long is it since you left him?”

“Half an hour.” The green-flecked eyes dwelt steadily on her anxious, upraised face. “My boy has just driven me home.”

"Then—he’s all right?”

“Pretty well. He was in this—accident, too. His forearm was slit, but it’s been stitched and dressed. No need to worry, though it will have to be watched for tetanus. He came off better than I did.”

“What sort of accident was it?” She spoke sharply.

There was the trace of a smile in his expression as he replied. “We went aboard Sholto’s ship and played poker. The stakes were high and your father won. A brawl started. We split a few heads, collected a scar apiece and retreated.”

“Were the stakes—diamonds?” she hazarded.

His mouth hardened. “A couple of small rough ones washed down from the alluvial deposits on the Gold
Coast.” He paused, and added mockingly: “Satisfied?”

“One thing more.” She flung up her chin with a gesture that challenged. “You don’t belong with the traders. Why did you go aboard that boat with Bill?”

His eyes narrowed, his tone was annoying, as though he spoke to a child. “Men get bored, little one. D’you comprehend?”

She tightened the belt of her coat. “Thank you for what you did for my father,” she said stiffly.

“Will you have a drink before you go?”

“No, thanks.”

“You have someone to drive you back?”

She nodded. “Goodnight.”