Authors: Isobel Chace
‘I’m going to ring off,’ she said, ‘before I disgrace myself entirely.’
Sara heard the familiar little click that meant she had been as good as her word, and, smiling a little, replaced her own receiver.
Back in the ward her letter glared up at her:
Dear Matt—
With deliberation she tore the sheet off the pad and into small pieces, letting them fall through her fingers into the waste paper basket.
Papa!’ said Hedda, and began to spread the pieces all over the floor.
To be out of the hospital with a whole free day to herself in which to prepare for the dance was a luxury Sara had not expected. Herr Friedrich had called for his now convalescent daughter early that morning, his face wreathed in smiles, full of thanks for the care they had given her.
‘Vat vould ve haf done vidout you?’ he asked, becoming harder to understand every moment.
‘
You would have flown her to Dar-es-Salaam,’ Sara reminded him.
But it was a good thing that she could have treatment so quickly.’
When the time came, Hedda had been reluctant to leave.
‘Nurse,’ she cried to Sara’s surprise. ‘Papa!’ she added doubtfully.
‘She learn English, yes?’ her father crooned with pride. ‘Soon she speak better than her papa, no?’
‘Papa,’ Hedda repeated even more doubtfully.
But at last they really had gone and apart from cleaning up the ward, Sara was free for the rest of the day.
Already the hot sun was beating down on the scorched grass and the jeep was so hot to her touch that she cried out when she knocked herself against the metalwork by accident. Then slowly, savouring every moment of her freedom, she drove slowly home.
There were three figures lying in deck chairs on the verandah. Sara could see them from a long way off be
c
ause of the sombreros they affected to keep the sun out of their eyes. One of the figures was lazily waving a homemade fan to the rhythm of her own rather complicated humming. This figure turned out to be Felicity.
‘Hullo, stranger
,’
she greeted Sara lazily. ‘Are you still living here?’
She sounded content, with a buttery contentment that was unlike her.
‘I do
,’
Sara replied cheerfully, ‘off and on!’
‘Mainly off
,’
James grunted. ‘I should know because I’ve been parked in your room until the invasion is over!’
Sara felt a moment’s annoyance. And just what was she expected to do? she wondered. Continue sleeping at the hospital?
‘By the way
,’
said the third person, who was John Halliday, ‘Julia was looking all over for you. She
said
she wanted to know the colour of your dress so that Matt could do you up a corsage from the garden!’
‘And what did she really want?’ Felicity asked.
John grinned, his eyes crinkling up at the corners.
‘I wouldn’t know,’ he said, ‘but I’d say she was gunning for someone!’
‘Pour me out some lemon juice, slave,’ James demanded, giving Felicity’s chair a kick with a lazy foot.
‘Get it yourself!’ she retorted.
He shrugged his shoulders and sauntered over to the table where the drinks had
b
een put by a thoughtful African.
‘Take my chair, Sara
,’
he said. ‘You look as though a bit of peace would go down well with you.’
She thanked him, but shook her head.
‘I want to have a bath and change
,’
she told him. ‘Mind if I look out some clothes?’
Help yourself, lady.’ He put an idle arm around her shoulders. ‘Know something, cousin-to-be? The Waynes and I have buried the hatchet.’
‘You mean you’ve told her?’ Sara asked.
He nodded. ‘I thought I’d better seeing I was moving into the house. It wasn’t so bad really. She seemed to be expecting something of the sort. She even acknowledged that I might some day grow up sufficiently to stand on my own two feet!’
‘And will you?’ she teased him.
‘Now don’t you start!’ he groaned. ‘Can’t you see, woman, the sea change that has been wrought in me?’ Sara looked him over. ‘You know, now that you mention it, I rather think I can,’ she told him, more seriously than she had intended. He bowed, acknowledging her remark, and smiled at her.
‘As great a change as in your garden, if you did but know,’ he confirmed. ‘Dangerous-looking pits at the back and all!’
‘What dangerous-looking pits?’
‘Ain’t you seen them?’ John drawled. ‘Guess somebody didn’t bring enough earth for back there. Maybe Matt had to call the work off until after the family had come and gone.’
‘It looks all right on this side anyway,’ Felicity said with satisfaction. ‘And so long as we all know they’re there, they’re not doing any harm at the back. None of us are likely to go out that way.’
And so Sara thought no more about it.
Mrs. Wayne was sleeping in the sitting-room, so she crept past the open doorway and went round to the side of the house. The sun was wel
l o
verhead by now and her room was dark and cool in contrast to the glare outside. Quickly she slipped out of her uniform and found herself some clean underclothes and a freshly ironed cotton frock.
It was exhilarating under the shower, with the cold water tingling against her flesh and the subtle perfume of the soap getting into her nostrils and relaxing her. This was one of the moments she liked best after a long, hard case. The moment when she could wash all her anxieties about it away and become herself again.
She dressed rapidly and went back to her room to make up and to do her hair, carrying her towel over her arm. The voices on the verandah had become louder and more social. She wondered if someone had come to visit them and hoped not, but hardly had she finished applying her lipstick than she heard a voice in the doorway asking: ‘May I come in?’
Startled, she turned quickly to see that it was Julia.
‘Of course,’ she said pleasantly. ‘But I’ve practically finished here. Shall we go outside?’
Julia gave her a rather complicated smile and sat down on the edge of the bed.
‘
The little nurse didn’t do too badly for herself, did she?’ she commented silkily. ‘Congratulations.’
‘Thank you.’ Sara wondered what she wanted. ‘John Halliday said you had been looking for me,’ she went on.
‘Did he?’ Julia’s figure traced a pattern on the bedclothes.
‘
Did he also say what I wanted?’
S
ara smiled. ‘He said you wanted to know the colour of the dress I’m wearing tonight, but I thought he must have got it wrong.’
‘Well, I had to have some excuse,’ Julia said casually. ‘It wasn’t really for that, of course.’ She looked up and smiled a little awkwardly.
‘
I came because Matt asked me to,’ she said. ‘Men never think what a spot they put one in when they ask one to do them a favour, do they? And of course we keep on obliging them! But then women are such fools!’ She sighed prettily. ‘You’ll have to forgive me, but really it wasn’t my idea!’
Sara put her comb down with deliberation on the dressing table.
‘Suppose you tell me what the idea is?’ she suggested.
‘Well, if you really want it straight
—
here goes! Matt always hates upsetting his mother and she, poor dear, ha
s
set her heart on having this party tonight. You know what mothers are! They don’t
think
what they’re getting other people into! Well, naturally Matt was a bit worried about the whole affair. I mean it’s not easy for him to produce you as his
fiancée
. No offence, you understand, but you’ve always had to work for your living and can’t really be expected to dress in Paris models, can you? But people like Uncle David expect that sort of thing from a girl. So you do see, don’t you?’
‘No,’ said Sara uncompromisingly.
Julia sighed again, perhaps not quite so prettily.
‘That he doesn’t want you to go tonight,’ she explained softly. ‘You can easily say you have a headache, or are really too tired after nursing that little girl. You know the sort of thing!’
‘Perhaps I do,’ Sara agreed easily.
‘Then you’ll do it?’ There was a sudden eagerness in Julia’s voice.
‘I’ll think about it.’ Sara smiled at her in the looking glass. ‘Why did you come, Julia?’ she asked. ‘Matt never sent you, did he?’
Julia’s mouth compressed into a thin straight line.
‘No, he didn’t!’ she snapped. ‘I was trying to make it easy for you. But if you think that you can walk into the Halifax family so easily, you have another thought coming! None of us will accept you! It was all agreed at breakfast this morning, if you must know. We built up this place. Why should you benefit?’
‘Forgive me if I’m a bit dense, but what exactly was decided at breakfast this morning?’
‘We decided that we’d all ignore you,’ Julia said reluctantly. ‘We’d just pretend that you weren’t there. Well, naturally I didn’t object
—
I don’t want you in the family any more than anyone else! But I didn’t want to see you humiliated like that, or Matt either.’
‘I see.’
‘Do you? The old Colonial families seem a bit harsh maybe to someone from England, but this is a harsh country. You’ve got to either kill or be killed here. It’s how we live!’
Somehow Sara managed to summon up a smile.
‘How very uncivilized!’
‘Well, you have taken it coolly, I must say!’ Julia exclaimed. ‘I don’t believe you’re really in love with Matt at all!’
‘No?’ Sara asked. ‘Well, it hardly seems to matter, does it? And now, would you mind going?’
She didn’t see Julia go, but she knew that she had, for she heard the door slam shut as she went.
Sara went through all the motions of preparing for the party. She pressed her one evening dress and had to admit that there was some justice in Julia’s remarks. It was certainly not a Paris model. But it suited her and she was fond of it. The skirt hung well and moved attractively when she walked. It was simple, but then simplicity suited her
—
or so she had always thought.
John went back to his own farm after lunch and Felicity and James went off into the boiling sun, apparently oblivious of the heat. Left alone, Sara sat on the verandah and tried to pretend to herself that she was reading. In fact she was thinking of Uncle David! The man with the embarrassing sense of humour, who couldn’t see a girl unless she was wearing a Paris gown!
This was her opportunity. Hadn’t she been looking for some reason to explain to Matt that she couldn’t marry him? And now here it was handed to her on a plate, and all she could do about it was to sit on the verandah and feel sorry for herself! All she had to do was to walk to the telephone and ask for Matt. He would be
glad
that she had changed her mind. He would be able to go back to that girl that everyone seemed to think he was carrying a torch for. Was she so selfish that she couldn’t put his happiness higher than her own?
The telephone was in the hallway. She went to it, closing the door into the sitting-room as she went.
‘Is that you, dear?’ Mrs. Wayne’s voice called out.
Sara popped her head round the door.
‘So you’re back,’ her aunt said.
‘D
id those two tell you that they finally got around to telling me that they were in love with each other?’
‘Yes, I’m so glad.’ But not now! Sara thought. Not now!
‘I’m going back to England with them,’ Mrs. Wayne went on. ‘I stayed here because of Noel, but I never really liked the life here after Independence, and Felicity will need help with all those babies she’s planning to have. She’s only a baby herself and couldn’t possibly know what to do!’
So Matt had been right about her aunt as well. For some reason this made Sara feel lower than ever. The house would be quite free for them to live in, only they weren’t going to live anywhere! Not together anyway!
‘I hope you’ll all be very happy,’ she said out loud.
‘We shall be,’ her aunt said certainly. ‘I know bette
r
than to interfere in their married life, so they’ll be very glad to have me around. Baby-sitting is very much appreciated in England, or so I’ve heard.’
‘It certainly is!’ Sara agreed. ‘I’m just going to telephone Matt about something and then I’ll come back.’
Mrs. Wayne nodded happily.
Only she wouldn’t be going back, Sara thought. She would pack her clothes and leave a note for her aunt. She would take the jeep down to the station and catch the train to Dar-es-Salaam. There would be no difficulty in her getting a job there. Hospitals were always only too glad to get well-trained European staff. It was a bleak picture. The station would be terribly hot and she had no idea when the next train would leave. She had an idea too that Tom would not approve of her hanging around. He would know that she had come from Kwaheri and he might even ring the estate to tell them she was there!