The Reluctant Guest (3 page)

Ann
learned that in the off-season Theo employed only two boys on the land, and at the moment one of them was sick. The other mended the fences and did some clearing, milked the few cows, fed the fowls and kept the sluits clear. Not that it often rained. Elva rode ahead towards the road, dismounted to open a drunken gate and take a look into some sheltered urns which stood on a log bench. She made a sound of disgust. “That boy always manages to float twigs and grass on the milk. One of these days the Creamery will tell us not to send any more.”

“Couldn’t you inspect them before he trundles them down here?” asked Ann.

“Lord, one can’t do everything. I’ve been meaning for months to get the gate fixed, and there are potholes in the lane deep enough to wreck a car or lame a horse in the dark. You wouldn’t think there were two of us working full time on this place, would you?”

“You don’t bother to get organized.”

Elva turned a hard grin towards Ann. “Maybe now that you’re here we’ll mend our ways. Are you looking forward to seeing Theo tonight?”

“Yes, of course.” It was true. The very thought of Theo, nonchalant and carefree compared with his sister, sent a wave of relief and excitement through Ann. “What time do you think he’ll come?”

“In time for dinner, if I know Theo. We’ll put on a good spread, pretend you arrived this evening instead of this morning.”

“Shall we dress up?”

“Why not? It’s a special occasion.” Elva reached for the rein, said casually, “You’ll be nice to Theo, won’t you? Remember that he’s only known you were coming since last night
.
”

“I’ll remember. He was grand in Cape Town.”

They had jogged along for some minutes when Elva said, without expression, “It make a difference, you see. You got to know Theo at his best and if he falls a little short of it now you’ll be disappointed, but you will kn
o
w how he
could
be. I’ve never been at my best in my life.”

After which she tapped her horse with the rein and moved ahead.

On the whole, it was an interesting if rather unsettling day. Ann discovered a great deal about the Borland
ménage
, but not enough to understand it really well. Aaron, apparent
l
y, did all the cooking
—
very plain, but in huge quantities. He also polished the floors, cleaned the windows, did the washing and ironing and between times tidied the garden and chopped wood for the kitchen stove. The boy didn’t seem to be overworked, but then most of what he attempted was only half done. For his own sake, perhaps, he gave most attention to the cooking, so there was seldom a grumble from his employers. Either they did not notice his shortcomings in other directions or they made allowances.

For dinner that evening, Aaron used steak which he tenderized with a murderous-looking slat of wood that had about thirty nails sticking out of one end of it, small potatoes, dried-up peas from the garden, a few yellow gem squash, a tin of fruit and a box of wheat biscuits.

The table looked fairly festive. Ann had found a white cloth and two brass candlesticks, and by careful searching she had also discovered some precocious pear blossom on the edge of the orchard. She rubbed the dusty look from a couple of candles and fitted then into the holders, arranged the pear blossom in a clay vase at the centre of the table, and carefully set three places. The table was ready, vegetables were cooking and the steak awaited the sound of Theo’s wheels.

Ann began to palpitate. Her thoughts skipped back a few hours, to the night on the train. Wakeful, she had wondered about Theo, felt first excited and happy and then a little frightened
...
then happy again. Only her parents knew that she had never before been so friendly with a man as she had been with Theo, during those two weeks he had persuaded her to spend wallowing in the delights of Cape Town. And even her parents hadn’t guessed how uplifting she had found her first experience of being almost in love. She stood at the window looking
out into the darkness, and recalled those evenings when they had sped along between vineyards and orchards, halted on a headland and listened to the sea, laughed together and learned about each other. Her mother had said, wisely, “You’re in love with the idea of love, aren’t I you, Ann? It’s not just Theo
—
it’s the whole thing, open
in
g out in front of you. You’re a bit late about it, you know, dear!”

Ann remembered her own response: “I want it to take a long time to happen. Is that silly?”

H
er mother had laughed. Neither of them had thought
much about Theo as a person till the letter from Elva had arrived. He had simply been a delightful episode that left a blank, and might or might not have repercussions. Now Ann thought of him almost as a refuge; which was queer. Theo wasn’t the bulwark type.

Elva came down into the room. She wore a powder blue silk frock, white studs in her ears and flat white sandals. Her hair was again drawn back into a wheaten knot, but she had left it a little looser, to form a wave just above the brow. She had used lipstick and a trace of powder, and the effect was good.

“It’s after seven,” she commented. “He should be here soon.” Then she looked at the table. “My, oh my! He’ll know it was you. I haven’t had a flower in the house for
...
for years.”

Why the hesitation, Ann wondered. Then she rebuked herself. She was getting hypersensitive, noticing everything and making trifles important. Nerves, she supposed.

They were getting in the way of everything
. T
hen, quite suddenly, they heard the sound they were
listening for. The crunch of tires on gravel, the final braking and cutting out of the engine. Without knowing it, Ann had gone paper-white. She stood very still, her , hand tight upon the back of a chair as she watched the door.

There was a sound on the wood, the door opened and
Storr Peterson came in. For several seconds he stood there, his gaze travelling over the two women in a rapid summing up before it rested on the bowl of blossom. Then he came right in.

“Sorry, girls,” he said, “but you’ve got yourselves keyed up for nothing. Theo won’t be here tonight.”

In her offhand tones, Elva said, “I don’t get keyed up over Theo. What’s happened to him?”

“A minor accident. He just telephoned through to my place. Seems he helped with assembling the tractor and sprained his wrist. He thought he hadn’t better drive till some of the pain has gone, and I told him to hang on at Wegersburg till he felt he could drive straight through, even if it took two or three days.” He looked straight at Ann, said laconically, “Bad luck, Miss Calvert, but it could have been worse.”

There seemed to be a double meaning in the last phrase, but
Ann
did not trouble to work it out. She felt the tenseness go from her limbs, but her throat was strangely dry. She moved slightly, so that there was no need to look his way.

Elva said, “We’ve got dinner for three on the go. Like to join us, Storr?”

He hesitated. “Yes, I would. We’re not running too smoothly yet over at the house and I was going down to the hotel in Belati West for dinner. If you like, I’ll go back for a bottle of wine.”

“Yes, do that. I’ll tell Aaron to get cooking.”

Storr gave Ann an indolent smile. “You can go with me to hold the bottle
—
save it rolling about
.
”

He seemed to be the sort of man that one obeyed simply because it was the least trouble. Ann went out into the cool darkness, got back into the seat she had occupied this morning and sat silent while he reversed and drove down through the orchard. He drew up in front of his own huge dwelling, murmured that he wouldn’t be long and went up the steps and between the pillars into a lighted porch. He disappeared, was gone for a few minutes before he was back in the porch, and closing the door. He held the bottle in a clean tea-cloth, and as he slid back behind the wheel he passed it to Ann.

“It’s dusty. Mind your frock,” he said.

She murmured something, and thought he would start up and drive round the lawn. But he sat back and said calmly, “You didn’t ask whether Theo had sent you his love.”

“I was too surprised to think of it
.
Did he?”

“Not in so many words. He asked if you’d arrived and wanted to know what you thought of the place. I told
him
you looked puzzled and wary.”

Ann
was nettled. “That wasn’t necessary!”

“It was true.” Then, surveying her interestedly, “Your color is a bit healthier now. When I walked in this evening I thought you were going to pass out
.
You expected Theo just then, didn’t you?”

“Naturally,” she said stiffly.

“Amazing,” he remarked in those infuriating conversational tones. “I’ve heard about the effect of love on the young, but I’ve never seen it so close. If I were you, I’d grow out of that stage before consenting to get married; otherwise you’ll be at a disadvantage for the rest of your life.”

“What can you know about that?” she said shortly.

“From experience? Nothing at all. But you see it happening all the time. In marriage there seems to be one who is loved and one who does the loving. I’d hate to be the second one.”

“Perhaps that’s because you’re not capable of it
.
”

“Possibly,” he conceded. “On the other hand, I’d be quite capable of sustaining a marriage in which the woman did the loving, so long as she was sensible about it
.
I can’t bear a woman who clings.”

“You’ve an outsize ego, haven’t you?”

“I wouldn’t admit that. I’m just a realist about marriage. Love happens to only a few people, thank heaven. The rest either give in to infatuation or they marry from a simple biological urge. When I marry
...
”

“Good lord,” she broke in coolly, “are you really going to give some woman the privilege of becoming your wife?”

His smile was white in the darkness. “You can be quite nasty in defence of romance, can’t you? Is Theo your first?”

“Is it important?”

"It is
—
to you. First love knocks all the sense out of a woman and she’s left just a shivering bundle of feelings.
I had a cousin who got it badly around your age. She didn
’t
marry the guy, but later on she married someone else. She has twins now
—
frightful little skellums of four. She’s the one who’s loved, and she likes it.”

“How nice.”

He laughed. “You can’t take it, can you? It’s that English upbringing. There are plenty of Englishmen in Cape Town. Why didn’t you go for one of them?”

“Why haven’t you yet fallen for a South African woman?” she countered.

“But I have
—
several times. Not very far, but I’ve fallen. That’s what I mean about not wanting to be the one who loves. You don’t have to get it very badly to discover that it’s a messy business and a trap.”

“Then why even contemplate marriage?”

He smiled cynically. “I don’t, very often. But I’m thirty
-
three, and this place”
—
with a wave of his hand at the
b
ig white house
—
“has been in the family for a hundred and forty years, father to son. I had a Dutch grandmother and she gave the place atmosphere.”

Again that word. Ann was beginning to distrust the most ordinary syllables from this man. “So you’ll marry someone suitable and not bother too much about loving her?”

“She’ll get a fair deal,” he said easily, and started the car. They were halfway along the lane through the orchard when he remarked, “If you’re wise, you’ll get Theo out of your system. You’re definitely Cape Town suburbs, with a modern shopping centre round the
corner
and city lights just a car ride away. No criticism intended
—
we’re all made differently.” Then he glanced at her lap and said with a mock-apprehensive nod, “That’s an ominous way you’re gripping the neck of the bottle. Maybe you’re not so quiet and inoffensive as you look.”

Ann didn’t try to find the answer. She fought down the unfamiliar surge of fury and tilted her chin, away from him. They drew up in front of the smaller house and she slipped out on to the path before he could reach her door. It was only a few paces into the living room.

Elva looked round from placing a dish on the table. “Got it? Will it be cold enough?”

“Straight from the cellar,” he said. “I don’t suppose you have any ice, anyway.”

“No, our fridge never gets that cold.”

Ann went off and washed her hands, waiting till she heard Aaron carrying food into the living room before she returned to the others. They sat down and ate, Elva put questions about Storr’s Continental tour, and he related a few incidents. Elva absorbed it all, greedily, said she had always felt she could settle anywhere if she had one good spell of travelling first.

Ann watched and listened. They knew each other well, these two; there was a bond of race and friendship between them, and tonight Elva was showing her happier side. Pink showed through her weathered tan, life was in the mid-blue eyes.

As they finished coffee, Storr looked at his watch. “Afraid I do have to go down to the hotel in Belati. I picked up a few loose ends this morning and promised I’d look in this evening. Why don’t you two come along with me?”

Elva looked obliquely at Ann. “I’d like it, Storr.”

Ann
said quickly, “I spent last night in the train
—
I’m a little tired. If you don’t mind, I’ll go straight to bed.”

No one tried to dissuade her. Elva dropped a scarf about her shoulders, Storr went through and locked up at the back, then slipped the catch on the front door so that it would lock behind them.

“Sleep well, Miss Calvert,” he said pleasantly, but with a look of cool amusement in his eyes. “And don’t worry. We’re all quite human at Groenkop.”

What did the beastly man mean by that, Ann asked herself, when the estate car had gone. An unfeeling type, she thought, and a little dangerous into the bargain. More than a little dangerous if one were weak about him, but she,
Ann
Calvert, need show no weakness in whatever dealings she might have with Storr Peterson. If she could avoid seeing him entirely so much the better.

She went into the strange bedroom and began to undress. It was very quiet, except for the chirping of a few night insects, and she stood near the window for a while,
thinking
of the small house at Newlands, where her mother was now completing her packing for the cruise. For a long moment Ann wished intensely that she were going with her parents; it might even have been better to stay at home and use the beaches. But she had taken on this visit to Groenkop and had to see it through. At best, she could only leave a few days before her month was up.