Authors: Kathryn Blair
“My dear, I wasn’t suggesting
...
”
Both heard the tap of heels in the hall and the snap of the lounge door as Lindsey came through.
“I’ve brought some more cakes
...
Oh, you’re smoking.”
Stuart replaced one tray with the other and seated Lindsey before resuming his position.
“I’m tenacious,” said Mrs. Conlowe. “I really do intend to make over that property to Lindsey. I shall fix an appointment with the solicitor and you must both attend.”
“If you’re determined,” Stuart said, “I’ll save you the trouble by seeing the solicitor myself and getting
him
to draw up the deed of transfer.”
Both women stared, his mother with his own sea blue gaze, and Lindsey incredulously, and a little frightened.
“Thank goodness,” Mrs. Conlowe exclaimed. “Your capitulation is not the less pleasant for the element of surprise. I’ll willingly leave it in your hands. And now, if you’ll call my boy from the entrancing Meta, I’ll go.”
Five minutes later she popped her head out of the car window.
“Stuart, the transfer is unconditional and for Lindsey’s life, thereafter equally shared among your heirs. Don’t forget.”
“I won’t.”
As he returned to the house he was smiling again.
“We’ll have a night out,” he said to Lindsey. “Dinner and dancing at the Country Club.”
“I’d like to.”
Possibly her voice lacked the correct degree of enthusiasm for he asked quickly, “Are you tired?”
“Not a bit.”
“You’re pale. Got a head?”
“No.”
“Something’s wrong or you wouldn’t droop. Is it this property business? You needn’t worry now I’m dealing with it. I can stall it off till I’m sure where we stand.”
“It’s been hot today,” she excused herself.
“Take a bath and
li
e down. No need to dress before 6:30. We won’t go if you still feel whacked.”
Lindsey’s eyes looked back from the bedroom mirror, level and hurt. She turned away and took down a dress from her wardrobe, a russet colored dress with rich glints of gold in the lamplight that matched her hair. A Cape Town extravagance in those days—barely a fortnight ago—when she had visualized their temperate relationship growing into a heady violence of loving.
A click of finger nails on the panel of her door. “How long, Lindsey?”
“Five minutes.”
She came into the dining room, s
lim
and tawny, her bronze silk sandals peeping as she walked.
Stuart said, “You look very lovely.”
But it didn’t count so much as it
migh
t have because he never failed to notice her clothes and compliment her taste. And he had a way of dropping her wrap over her shoulders with a slight, possessive pressure which at first had made her feel as though she were the only woman in the world.
The Paynters Ridge Country Club was a low and rambling structure in white cement, set above terraces of rock flowers, the whole enclosed wi
thin
flowe
ring
trees, cedars and red-hot poker aloes. The coastal highway passed the gates, and on the other side of the road one m
ight
clamber down the rocks to a
small
private lagoon for bathing and canoeing.
The Club served a good dinner and a wide choice of wines, the band had a sense of rhythm if little soul for music, and well-dressed Port Acland filled the tables night after night and appeared never to tire of the surroundings and one another.
People looked at Stuart and Lindsey as they came in. Looked, she believed, mostly at him, for he was tall
and
extraordinarily good looking in evening clothes, and already becoming well known in business and professional circles in the town.
They had a table for two near a pillar on the edge of the dance floor. Windows all round were wide open and curtainless. A breeze caressed bare shoulders and carried away smoke and heat, but did nothing to lessen the noise of gossip and laughter and
clinking
glasses.
Halfway through the meal Tony Loraine came in, escorting a weary-looking fair girl who wore an abundance of make up and a minimum in the way of dress. He had to pass close to their table.
“Welcome to night life,” he cried. “Dance with me later, Lin?”
She nodded and smiled, anxious for
him
to pass on with his blonde passenger.
Stuart said, frowning, “Who gave that young bounder permission to call you Lin?”
“It’s done in his set. Everyone who isn’t ‘darling’ has a pet name.”
“What do you know about his set?”
“Only what I learned that day when Adrienne took me to his flat for lunch. Tony’s harmless.”
“I distrust the type, and his methods of earning a living.”
“We have to have photographers and gossip writers.”
“But we’re not compelled to meet them socially. I knew it was a mistake to invite
him
to
dinne
r
last Sunday. Please don’t do it again, Lindsey.”
“Very well,” she said. “I’m sorry. I took it that, as he’s Adrienne’s cousin
...”
“One can’t help one’s relatives. Adrienne dislikes the fellow as much as I do. She told me so herself.” Adrienne’s a snake, thought Lindsey, a particularly nasty sort that turns on its own kind.
They danced a few times and went for a walk up to the headland, where they stood for a
while listening to the ceaseless roar of the rollers breaking about the rocks below. The wind off the sea was warm and clammy; from underfoot rose the scent of crushed bog myrtle, pungent, clinging. The sky hung out a maze
of stars. The sea glittered. Over the air stole a faint, medley-voiced chant, punctuated by the regular beat of a drum.
“What’s that?” whispered Lindsey.
“A native village back in the bush. They’re always singing
.
”
“Natives who work in Port Acland?”
“The same. Did you think they all lived in brick houses and strummed pianos?”
“No; but it sounds so primitive.”
“Most of them are. A building contractor was telling me today that he has a new boy from only twenty miles inland who had never before left his kraal
.
He’s bitterly disappointed in the sea. It’s so salty.”
“Did he really taste it?”
“He drank pints and was ill as a puppy after it.” Presently they wandered back. Lindsey was hoping he would suggest going straight home, but instead he took her elbow and guided her through the dark paths to the amply illuminated front entrance.
“It was damp out there,” he said. “A drink for you before we go.”
She sank into one of the divans in the vestibule and there, just opposite, sat Adrienne Cadell between a bored married couple, who looked just as bored when she got up.
Stuart pushed forward a chair. “A long or a short drink, Adrienne?”
“Long, please. Granadilla with a spot of gin.” Her flaming fingertips hovered over his cigarette case. Her eyes were bright, her teeth gleamed as the cigarette slipped between her lips. “I haven’t seen you here before.”
“This is our first visit,” he said. “One has to be in the mood to enjoy these places.”
“And you’re not
...
often?”
“About once a month.”
“And Lindsey?”
“She wouldn’t mind if we didn’t come at all, would you, Lindsey?”
“I like dining out, but it’s been so hot today, and I keep cooler at home.”
“I haven’t noticed the heat,” remarked Adrienne. “Have you, Stuart?”
“Not particularly, but you’re wholly South African and I’m half. Lindsey won’t feel it when her blood thins.”
“If she does, you’ll have to take her back to England.” She saw him cast a quick, oblique glance at Lindsey, before she added, “Mrs. Conlowe came home very pleased with the trip out to ‘Elliotdale.’ I expect she told you that some time soon she wishes to run down to the new site for Conlowe Limited? When she does, I hope you’ll let me go with her, Stuart?”
“Would you be interested?”
“Very.”
“Then of course you must go.”
Adrienne was watching him over the rim of her glass as she asked Lindsey,
“
What do you think of the site?”
“I
...
haven’t seen it.”
“No?” The astonishment was staccato
,
well-timed. “Don’t English women take an interest in their husbands’ business affairs?”
“There’s n
o
thing to see but waste land and the foreshore,” said Stuart carelessly. “We’re not building till I’ve been to Johannesburg.” He drained his glass. “We must go now, Adrienne. Can we drop you on the way?”
“Thanks,” with a mock hangdog gesture over her shoulder, “but I’m tied to the Millers till midnight.” Adrienne was not tied to the Millers. She had accepted their offer of a lift to the Club, but once there could find no further use for them. She had come hoping to mix with Tim Baumann’s crowd, but she had learned that Tim was not here tonight. Tony was dragging round with the dreary little blonde wife of a wealthy sugar planter, and she had no time for the two or three men who offered her a drink. They were either married or poor—poor, at any rate, by Adrienne’s standard.
Tim Baumann, the tinned sausage manufacturer despised by Mrs. Conlowe, might be vulgar, and his wife, Rita, coarse in speech and dress, but both were open-handed, especially to the social set whom they lumped together as “class.” Adrienne had this quality, and so did Tony; therefore both were welcomed into the Baumann entourage, which consisted mainly of young folk out for a good time and not particular how they got it
.
Adrienne was finding it increasingly difficult to live on the three hundred a year provided by her father, even with extras like commission from Tony on introductions and the substantial cheques handed over by Rita Baumann when Adrienne was able to persuade members of the upper hundred to condescend to one of their parties. Her last dress bill was staggering, and she was being dunned in other directions for stiff amounts that she had no
imm
ediate
hope of meeting. All had to be placated with instalments and promises, lest Mrs. Conlowe learn that her gentle companion had slipped into a category she contemned even more than vulgarity.
It was a hard life, reflected Adrienne, trying to live up to Mrs. Conlowe’s conception of Horace Cadell’s daughter. She was not ignorant of the older woman’s endeavors to get her married, but oddly, matrimony had attracted her little till Stuart came to Port Acland and began behaving as though he meant to stay. Marriage with
him
would be worth having! Money, position, a handsome husband. What filthy luck that he had brought a wife with him—so recently acquired, too. From the day she had happened on Stuart outside Rickerman’s, Adrienne felt cheated.
Then she met Lindsey. The “nice” type of girl, definitely unsophisticated and badly scared over something—that was obvious last Sunday during the incident with the snapshots. Stuart took care of her as if she were a precious young sister; his attitude towards her was not in the least loverlike.
Supposing, just supposing, he’d rescued her from something. But no, they were friends in London, had quarrelled and come together again as so many normal lovers do. Adrienne was puzzled, intrigued and not a little hopeful. Beneath his charm, Stuart hid dynamic vitality. For how long would a woman of Lindsey’s disposition meet his needs?
She fitted one of her own cigarettes into an amber holder and lit it. Tonight, it had looked just a little as though conditions in the Stuart Conlowe household might be deteriorating. The climate or the girl’s nerves were giving her trouble. If Stuart was in love with her he’d pull her through. But was he?
A narrow smile curved the reddened lips. A reluctant, apologetic word in Mrs. Conlowe’s ear would do no harm to herself and might pay dividends. Anyway, it should halt the growing affection for the daughter-in-law.
Next day Lindsey heard from Mrs. MacLellan. After a few conventional paragraphs, the letter finished: “You barely refer to your husband, Lindsey, and I am wondering whether you have encountered more difficulties than you imagined. It breaks my heart to think of you more or less alone in Port Acland and perhaps battling with unknown deeps. I know how difficult it is to write of personal matters, but do please let me help if I can, and remember that if you feel the need of a rest, we shall be so delighted if you will come to us.” For a minute Lindsey cherished a wild notion. She would ask Stuart if, when he had to go north, she
might
take a train to Cape Town and spend the few
days with, the MacLellans. But the very next second she knew she could not approach
him
with such a request. If Stuart planned a trek to the Congo itself she would go, too, so long as he’d take her.
So the reply she wrote to the kind little woman in Cape Town was as superficial in tone as her previous epistle, and impregnated with a cautious gaiety over trifles. Later, Lindsey was thankful she had belittled her problems to Mrs. MacLellan, for Stuart came home full of a plan to spend a long week end at Groenkops Pass, a famous beauty spot on the Groenkops River, and her heart beat high with anticipation.