Brittle Bondage (14 page)

“It’s stuck up there,” Neil hazarded, to be confounded the next second when the bright globe descended with a thud against his forehead. The suddenness of it actually made him stagger.

A laugh broke from Venetia, a wholehearted gurgle of joy in his disgruntled astonishment. She straightened and saw that Blake was near. Her laughter faded, and she kicked the orange from the path into a tangle of flowering honeysuckle.

“Has Paul gone?” she asked, to prevent Neil expatiating on the silly incident.

“He has. It’s nearly twelve.” To Neil he added: “Thank you for calling. Tell Mervyn I’ll get in touch with him within the next day or two. This side path leads to the top end of the pasture.”

Neil accepted his dismissal gracefully. Neither he nor Venetia alluded to the hat which he had deposited on a chair in the veranda, though they both remembered it. When he had gone, Blake looked down at her.

“You seem to find the young Mansfield amusing company.”

“He’s pleasant,” she admitted.

“And you don’t have to put on an act with him, which must be rather a relief.” His mouth was sternly set and his eyes were shrewd and grave.

“There’s something in that,” she concurred, with a touch of his own brevity.

“He won’t have confessed to you that his cousin is annoyed at his lack of progress, and is already regretting having taken him into partnership.”

She began to pace towards the house. “Neil doesn’t have to explain himself to me. I suppose he can go back to his parents and start afresh. They’re comfortably off.” They had reached the back entrance, and she stopped. “I’ve some jobs to do in the kitchen.”

“I guessed you would have,” he said, with an edge to his voice, and left her there.

During that week Neil rode or drove over in Mervyn’s car every day, either soon after breakfast or in the late afternoon. In the mornings he took care to leave just before Blake was due for lunch, but if he and Venetia happened to be playing tennis when Blake finished for the day they would all have sundowners together, and Neil would immediately thereafter wave them an airy farewell.

Information came through that the fever cases, almost wholly among natives, had numerically passed the peak. So when, on Friday evening, Venetia saw Paul’s car pull up in the drive she was disappointed that he had come without Thea. In spite of his movements being quick and energetic, he still had the look of weariness.

“Hullo, Venetia,” with a fleeting smile. “Where’s Blake?”

“Writing letters. Shall I call him for you?”

“Please. It’s rather urgent.”

“I won’t be a second.” She hurried to the study, and tapped. “Blake, Paul wants to see you.”

He came into the hall, switched on the light and motioned Paul to a chair. “More trouble?”

Paul remained standing. “Of a different kind. You remember I mentioned that one of the boys at Vrede Rust had been taken to town with fever?”

Blake nodded. “A stable boy.”

"That’s right. Miss Benham was immediately served with a notice that her farm must be isolated for eight days. Last Monday, while mixing some cattle medicine, she scalded her arm severely. She got the houseboy to dress it, but natives are not too particular, and it’s taken infection. She called me this afternoon. The arm’s nasty.”

“God, poor Natalie!” exclaimed Blake. “Why in the world didn’t she send me a message days ago?”

“Because of the quarantine notice. She took every precaution against spreading the fever—even had warnings affixed to her gates. She only sent for me when it became evident that the wound was poisoned and likely to extend into a devil of a mess.”

“Hasn’t she a woman neighbour with her?”

No, she’s quite alone. I gave her an injection and left some tablets which will eliminate the poison, but she ought to rest for a couple of days, and I’m afraid that isn’t possible at Vrede Rust.”

“Leave it to me, Paul,” said Blake. “I’ll bring her here for the week-end.”

“Miss Benham had an idea you’d suggest that, and I must say I hoped you would. Does Venetia agree?”

From her perch on the side of a chair, she inclined her head and spoke thinly. “I haven’t much choice. Blake has made the decision.”

Paul’s glance sped from one to the other. He turned to the porch. “We’re still tearingly busy in town. Do what you think best, Blake.”

A silence followed his departure. Then Blake remarked: “That wasn’t a very pleasant thing to say. What have you got against Natalie?”

Her head was still down, hiding the wistful unhappiness in her eyes. “I know I oughtn’t to have come out with that in front of Paul. But
...
isn’t there any other way of helping her? Couldn’t we pay the foreman’s wife to go over and look after her for a few days?”

“We could,” he replied curtly, “if we weren’t her friends and neighbours.”

In her wretchedness she dared more than she had intended. “Your objection to having a third person living with us has suddenly evaporated.”

“It hasn’t. Natalie’s sick.”

“She has other friends.”

“But it happens to be me she’s looking to, and I’m not going to let her down. For her sake and your own, you must be sweet to her.”

“Very well. I’ll have the spare room got ready.”

He was against the door, barring her way. Her upturned face had a pale, appealing loveliness against the loose waves of her burning hair. The pulse was beating in the delicate base of her throat and her mouth was set a line too controlled for so young a creature.

“Don’t keep hurting yourself. I’m not demanding the impossible of you, Venetia,” he said, almost below his breath.

The unexpected softness in him alarmed and frightened her. What
di
d he mean? Was he pleading that she accept his love for Natalie and allow him at least the bitter pleasure of having her near for a while? Her whole being contracted in an aching horror. She did not linger to watch his face darken and his teeth come viciously together, but went out of the house and round the veranda to the kitchen.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

BLAKE brought Natalie to Bondolo that night in time for a late dinner. There was not the least complacency or antagonism in her manner. Except for the bandaged arm and a becoming pallor, the other woman appeared her normal self, and if her tones had huskiness they were certainly no less attractive for it.

“It’s exceedingly kind of you to have me, Venetia,” she murmured with apparent sincerity. “Please don’t treat me as an invalid.”

“Paul prescribed rest,” Blake put in, “so while you’re here you go to bed at nine-thirty and get up late. And don’t worry about the farm. I’ll keep it
r
unn
ing
for you.” It was all very friendly. At nine-fifteen Blake prepared Natalie’s nightcap of whisky and warm milk and reminded her to swallow her tablets. Venetia escorted her down the corridor to her room, drew the curtains and helped her off with her dress.

“I can manage now, thank you,” said Natalie politely, and Venetia said good night, crossed to her own bedroom and shut herself in.

She went to the window and stood staring unseeing at the uncanny blue of the African night. Emotions she had never suspected twisted and tortured her. She wanted to march down to the lounge and confront Blake, unleash at him the violence and pain. And then she recalled his strange quietness, “I’m not demanding the impossible of you, Venetia.” But he was. She couldn’t stand the suffocating agony of having the woman under this roof, occupying the room next to Blake’s.

Blake spent most of Saturday away at Vrede Rust. Natalie sat in the long chair on the veranda, and Venetia sewed and read nearby.

It was about noon when she looked up from her book to find the sparkling, speculative gaze concentrated upon her. A tremor ran through her, and the book between her hands closed with a snap.

“Would you like a drink, Natalie?”

The sleek head shook lazily. “You forget that I’m a local. The English in this country always absorb outlandish quantities of squash.”

Venetia shrugged. “Not entirely because we’re always thirsty. We enjoy your fresh fruit drinks with the ever-available cubes of ice. Are you comfortable?”

“Quite. More so than you are, I daresay. I couldn’t exist in your continual state of tension. Are you still finding things hard going?”

“Hard going?” Venetia echoed the words carefully. “Learning the ways of a new country may have its difficulties, but it’s great fun. I haven’t made any more stupid errors like the one I made on the bay mare.”

Natalie’s small mouth dented at the corners, giving her face an expression of humour which was a fraction less than supercilious. “With practice, anyone can handle a horse. A husband, however, is a more complicated proposition, particularly when he happens to be Blake Garrard. Quite a handful, isn’t he? Doesn’t it sting a bit to realize that you are failing to make him happy?”

The question was put so moderately that seconds passed before Venetia received its full impact. From the clammy coldness of her brow she knew that she had whitened. Swiftly she reminded herself that Natalie was a guest at Bondolo and not completely fit. She attempted lightness. “Who told you that?”

“I didn’t have to be told. I’m neither blind nor a moron, especially where Blake’s concerned. When he brought you back from Umsanga it was a shock to many of us who knew him well. To me it was a tragedy.”

Venetia went cold, and even whiter. “You’re being extraordinarily frank, Natalie!”

“I can afford to be,” she said equably. “The tragedy was not the blow to my own ambitions, but the fact that Blake was not in love with you. Chivalry and protective instinct are a poor substitute for love, but I’m afraid they’re all he’ll ever be able to give you.”

Steeled to keep her end up at any price, Venetia shaped her lips to a smile. “You’ve worked things out reasonably, haven’t you? Why don’t you discuss me with Blake? All this would intrigue him enormously.”

“I like Blake too much to hurt him. Since we’re being candid, let me remind you that he married you because you were more or less destitute and in a strange land. You took unfair advantage of him, and now you’re spoiling his life.” Natalie made an impatient gesture. “Don’t look so stricken—it had to be said. It’s up to you to be honest with yourself, and decide what to do to put matters right for him.”

“Natalie,” Venetia said steadily, “you and Blake have been friends for several years. Why didn’t you marry long before I came into the picture?”

The reply was firm and unhesitating. “I was never sure enough of myself in those days. We parted to think it over. That was when Blake went to Umsanga for six weeks—the holiday during which he met you. He returned here, and we were closer than ever before; we were on the point of becoming engaged. Then he heard that a friend at the coast had died—your father, I suppose—and he set off in a hurry for Umsanga. The next time I saw him was when I came to the dinner-party at Bondolo ten days after you were married.” With calculated passion she ended: “You are counting on his generosity; you know he will never send you away, never even admit to you that he doesn’t love you. It rests between you and your conscience whether you can cling to a man who has wished a thousand times that he had never set eyes on you.”

Venetia could not think; she could not even feel very much. Both would come later. She collected her things.

“Mosi will bring your lunch out here,” she said, and went into the house.

Venetia’s first coherent thought was not to wonder how much of Natalie’s brutal candour was based on certain knowledge and how much of it was bluff. Too much truth had been spoken to bother with the trifle of how it was come by. In any case, Blake’s dissatisfaction with his wife might be evident to a woman who loved him.

No. Oddly enough, her first concern was that the weekend should pass smoothly and Natalie be returned to her farm. After that would come the showdown with Blake. It seemed now that she had known in her bones for a long time that she and Blake must part.

And for the same length of time she had known that she loved him, deeply and irrevocably. Standing there at the foot of her bed, she recalled with anguished clarity, the almost monotonous regularity of the sleep
l
ess nights, when she had longed to hear his steps at the door, his fingers upon the handle. With a stab of self-knowledge she was aware of needing Blake with every sinew and fibre of her body.

Suddenly she began to shiver, and the long-suppressed tears had their way. Her slight figure was racked by sobs, the hopeless weeping of a disillusioned woman.

She did not leave her room till the middle of the afternoon, when Neil’s voice became audible. He needed no urging to stay till Blake arrived, though he confessed to Venetia that he wouldn’t come again till Natalie had gone. She was the only woman by whom he had ever been intimidated.

After dinner, Blake suggested a game of gin rummy. Painstakingly he taught Venetia the rules, and it being essentially a game for two people, she took alternate beatings from him and Natalie, and sat out every third game to witness the good-natured struggle between them.

Tonight Natalie’s demeanour was quiet and confident. Beyond a few pertinent questions she made no allusion to Vrede Rust, and it seemed to Venetia that the other woman felt too warmly and comfortably at home to care about anything outside the confines of Bondolo.

Venetia stood by while Blake dressed the scalded arm. He was gentle and thorough, and when he had done he responded to Natalie’s heartfelt “Thank heaven!
”
by smiling sympathetically and patting her fingers.

Natalie rode the bay next morning, managing admirably with one hand as she trotted on the right side of Blake along the lanes of the plantation. She used the technical terms for the varieties of sugar-cane, and asked if she might have a few of the Uba type for planting out. From their conversation Venetia gathered that molasses was not the only by-product from refining. She had had to wait for Natalie’s visit before learning as much.

They emerged into the veld, and Blake nodded left, towards the river.

Natalie said: “We’re only two miles from your boundary. Can’t we ride that far?”

“The circular tour is enough for Venetia,” he answered. “She seldom does more.”

“I’m game,” said Venetia quickly.

“It’s too hot for you.”

“It isn’t. I can manage that distance.”

“I’m not going to let you.”

“Go with Natalie, then.” Something goaded her into adding, “She might get a kick out of riding a mile farther and taking a peep into Mervyn Mansfield’s game reserve.”

Natalie’s strong, brown fingers tightened over the reins. “So I might. Shall we, Blake?”

“You start off in that direction,” he said. “I’ll see Venetia to the river and follow you.”

Venetia dug the grey into a canter, and the stallion ranged alongside. At the river she flung Blake a cool little smile.

“So long. You two can take your time.”

“Thanks.” And he wheeled back towards the distant figure of Natalie.

They lunched on the veranda, and Natalie rested there in the long chair, while Venetia sat reading a book in her room and Blake caught up on his correspondence and the filing of reports. The Clarkes came over for tea and were coaxed to remain for the usual cold Sunday supper.

Margery, with her ordinary looks, her familiar throaty voice, her household problems, her inefficient dairy and reluctant hens, robbed the atmosphere of part of its burden of unreality and drama.