Mayenga Farm (21 page)

"You mean it’s Jackie's birthday. I hadn’t forgotten."

"It's seven-thirty. I thought you’d be changed and ready to leave."

"For the party? I . . . you didn’t say you’d come."

"Was it necessary?" His voice was cool, uncommunicative. "It’s common sense that we should all go together in one car. Will it take you long to dress?"

Her head averted, she answered. "I’m not going, Kent, nor is my father. Jackie knows already."

There was a short, tense silence.

"May I know why?" he finally asked.

She gave a tiny, brittle laugh. "The silliest reason, yet a sound one. Moth got into my solitary evening dress, and I didn't find out till today.

So no party for Rennie."

This time the silence was unbearably long. The buck fidgeted, and Rennie went over to get the lantern. Kent turned and held open the door till she had passed through. Rennie’s free hand came up to slide the bar and snap the lock at the same time as Kent's; it was firmly, but not roughly, thrust aside.

In the same stretched wordlessness, they walked up the path to the front drive. Kent opened the door of his car and switched on the interior lights.

Half-savagely, he observed, "You could have knocked up some other dress to wear if you’d wanted to. Women always can. There’s a deeper reason, isn’t there?"

"I can’t think up one," she said. "You can’t wear a makeshift frock at a twenty-first birthday party—it isn’t done, Jac will understand. I wrote her this afternoon and promised to drive into town tomorrow to see her presents and hear about the party."

"You’re rather clever at note-writing." His tone was edged. "Did Michael teach you how to wrap up a punch in a few syllables? You and he should collaborate."

Rennie could summon no immediate reply. Dispiritedly, she watched the arc of the lamp she was holding swing over the gravel path.

"I'll get going," he said.

"I hope you’ll have a lovely evening . . . you and Jac," she said quietly. "I’m sorry you came out or your way to call. I mean . . ."

"Don’t elaborate," he answered abruptly. "So am I." And he got into the car.

He backed and shot away. Rennie quenched the lantern and placed it on its hook in the stoep. The brief interview with Kent had left her tired and unhappy, and she had no heart for dressing and eating. He was hating her for returning his gift, and she had no one to blame but herself. Well, the first step in the break with him had been taken, and the rest might now be less difficult.

C H A P T E R F O U R T E E N

Rennie did not hear about the birthday party from Jackie herself.

Obeying a summons to the bookshop which had been conveyed by Michael the night before, she decided to

call in at the Carlton on the way. From the receptionist she learned that the hotel had been unable to close its doors till four this morning, and that Miss Caton and her mother were still sleeping. It seemed that Gravenburg had never before witnessed such a binge.

Rennie passed on to the peaceful atmosphere of the bookshop. With pride, Mr. Morgan displayed sample library tickets and index cards, and she showed him how the things were filed for easy reference. He had received large parcels of books from various charitable sources, but before they were arranged he would like Adrian to come down to the library to supervise the placing in position of the shelving. The modern stuff which had been ordered would soon be arriving.

She nodded, exclaimed and smiled, and Mr. Morgan was satisfied that she would do her utmost to coax Adrian into sharing his responsibilities.

But later something happened which drove the old man and his pet scheme clean out of Rennie’s head. Adrian did not show up for lunch.

As usual, the table was ready at one, and Rennie waited at the dining room window, thinking of nothing in particular. After a while she consulted her watch. One twenty-five. Her father was never so late as this. Normally, he was here by twelve-thirty, to give himself ample time for a wash and a rest before eating. Perhaps his horse had gone lame; he was the sort to walk rather than add to a horse's pain. Though she hoped he was doing nothing so foolish. Even at this season the midday heat was fierce.

Time crept on, and Rennie became furious with herself for not having ascertained where he would be working this morning. By a process of elimination she concluded that the cattle pasture was the likeliest scene of his activities, though he had mentioned the fact that the orchard needed pruning. Well, the orchard was just off the road to the pasture. She would saddle Paddy and ride out.

Ten minutes later she was cantering along the main path through the orchard, peering anxiously between the rows of young trees. Of a couple of boys who were scything grass, she asked:

"Have you seen the baas?"

"Just this morning, missus, eight-nine o’clock." "He hasn't worked here?"

"No, missus."

She rode on to the shed at the edge of the pasture. The cowman was less blank to her enquiries.

"The baas, him here one hour ago. Then he say go for food."

"He went this way?"— indicating the way by which she had come.

"Yas, missus."

Rennie pulled round the gelding. It would do no good to panic. Her father must have digressed on his way home; he might even have met someone—though she couldn’t think of one person who would come out here to see him without calling first at the house. She wished she had brought Michael, and then it occurred to her that her father might by now have reached home by another route. She goaded Paddy into a gallop.

With a sick sensation of thankfulness, she saw Adrian's horse grazing among the shrubs in the garden, and she slid down from Paddy and raced indoors.

The lounge door was wide, and Michael called urgently "Is that you, Rennie? Come here, quickly."

She took a few steps into the room, stopped to fight down a fresh surge of terror, and ran forward to kneel before the chair in which her father was slumped,

"Darling, what is it..."

And then she noticed the puffy red rash both sides of his neck, and the swelling of his hands. Swiftly, she turned to Michael:

"Get out the car and call a doctor—bring him back with you."

"Get out. . . the car ... but take me with you," Adrian whispered.

"You’re not fit," burst out Rennie. "We can’t tell what this may be."

"We can, my dear." He had to take another breath before he could add: "It's a snake bite."

Rennie knew, by the sudden cold sweat at her temples, that she had whitened. For a long moment of suffocating fright, she stared at him, willing herself not to believe.

Then: "Michael ... the car! Doctor's don't often keep serum. We'll have to take him to the hospital."

Adrian managed the ghost of a smile. "That’s . . . what I thought." After which he fell back and closed his eyes.

Rennie never did remember the details of the next two hours. There was the ride, when she sat with her father in the back of the car, and tried to keep from looking at his face, which was blue-tinged now, and purple where the rash had been. Then their arrival at the hospital, and the maddeningly deliberate efficiency of the "casualty" nurses, male and female. Adrian was transferred to a mobile stretcher and wheeled away, and Rennie and Michael were told that they might wait on a bench in the courtyard.

They sat silent, Michael smoking. Rennie made an effort to recall all the bits of information she had gleaned about snake bite. She had read in the Gravenburg newspaper about people dying of it, if they were not immediately attended to. She kept seeing Adrian lying blue and swollen and unconscious. It seemed impossible that they could restore him to the normal being he had been at breakfast this morning.

She trembled, and Michael put an arm across her shoulders.

"Don't, Rennie. These hospitals are equipped for this kind of emergency."

"They're so long about it."

"Not so very. They'll have injected at once, and now they're watching results. Shall I go in and make enquiries

"Please, Michael."

But there was no news. They walked round the grounds and came back again. This time, Rennie went into the little bare room with Michael. The white-coated man in the small office beyond a glass partition smiled and shook his head, Still nothing to report

Rennie sat in a hard chair, her hands gripped together on the table. She didn't know what she was praying, nor was she aware that someone else had joined them, till Michael drew her attention.

She turned her head and looked blindly up at Kent. In a dull tone she asked: "What are you doing here?"

"The same as you," he said. "I called at the farm to leave some special seed I'd promised your father, and the boy told me the baas was sick and gone to hospital, so I came straight on. What's wrong with Adrian?"

She explained, and found herself examining his face for hopeful signs. Kent would have had some experience of snake bite.

"If you'd come to me," he said, "I'd have telephoned for serum, and he needn't have been moved."

"It didn't occur to me. Michael and I did very well." She pressed a hand to her forehead, and her voice caught. "I wish they'd hurry. Why don't they tell us something?"

"I'll find out," Kent answered, and boldly strode through into a corridor.

Rennie remained with her forehead dropped into her hands, and Michael stood with his back to the room, his gaze upon the cedars and palms in the courtyard.

Kent got results. He came back with one of the two doctors who had been attending Adrian.

"I don't think you need worry, young lady," the man said breezily. "The swelling is already receding and your father is conscious. At his age these things take time. We'll keep him here overnight, and you may pick him up early tomorrow afternoon."

Rennie's jaws were too rigid for immediate speech.

Michael said: "Thank you, sir. Thank you very much."

"May I see him?" she questioned quietly.

"Better not. He's exhausted. Will you excuse me?"

Rennie moved to the door and out into the sunshine. The two men followed. She went over to the car.

"Will you drive again, Michael?"

"Of course." He opened the door for her. "Sink in."

"Just a minute." Kent, an aloof smile on his lips, had come between them. "Rogers can take your car, Rennie. Mine is equally comfortable, and I want a word with you," "I’m tired, Kent."

"I know. I'll get you home, quickly."

Michael's face was acquiring the awkward flush for which Kent had been responsible at the library meeting. He had been so good and thoughtful that, to save him further embarrassment, she twisted towards the maroon car.

"See you later, Michael."

She was in her seat before Kent could help her, and had drawn into the corner, as far from him as possible. He circled the hospital courtyard and glided out, well ahead of the Gaynor car.

"You've had an anxious time," he commented. "No one but your father could have collected a snake bite in that way."

"In . . . what way?"

"Didn’t he tell you?"

"By the time I saw him he could hardly speak. Who told you how he came by it?"

"He did, when I went through to the theatre just now. He was in a bit of a sweat, so the doctors let him talk for a minute...."

"How does he look?"

"Not too bad, and improving all the time. His speech was thick but quite lucid. He was frantic for me to make sure that you stay away from the dairy. Apparently there's a family of snakes in the cavity beneath the floor, and you’re not to go near the place again till they're exterminated." He slanted a glance at her. "Adrian did a crazy thing. From the back of his horse he saw what he thought was a ringhals, and his interest in it outweighed his prudence. He got down to make friends with the little fellow and was amazed to see two others shoot under the building. So amazed, in fact, that he stayed crouched long enough for the first chap to strike," He paused. "When did you last go to the dairy?"

"Yesterday. How does one kill the things?"

"There’s only one way. Surround the building with boys in gumboots and leather gauntlets and smoke out the cavity. They'll evacuate and get it in the neck."

Rennie said nothing. Adrian owned the only pair of gum-boots at

Mayenga and there wasn't a leather gauntlet in the place.

"If you were to ask me, I'd bring the men and materials and do the job for you," Kent mentioned softly.

"I daresay you've already given your word to my father," she replied coolly. "I've no intention of pleading with you."

"If you hadn't had a fright and a bad afternoon," said Kent with some force, "I'd shake some good feeling into you."

And there, for the present, they left it. The car sped round the Mayenga turn, over the bridge and up to the house. Rennie got out, gave him a chilly nod and leaned back against the gate to wait for Michael.

Through the car window Kent bluntly stated: "I'll be back in half an hour. See that you keep to the house."

Once inside the lounge, with her feet on a stool and Michael pouring tea, Rennie had no desire to move. Michael, almost cheerful now that threatened tragedy had been averted, talked about "near shaves" and "incredible luck." Men didn't feel things as a woman did, thought Rennie; in any case, Adrian was neither Michael's father, nor Kent’s.

When the Elands Ridge lorry drove up Michael went out. Rennie could hear the natives chattering—probably comparing their weapons—and the plodding of their rubber-shod feet as they marched towards the dairy. Then all was quiet.

They must have tackled the task at once, for quite soon a babel broke out, a cacophony of yells and screams. The bravest native has a wholesale fear of snakes, and Rennie didn’t doubt that Kent would have to pay them plenty for this hour’s work.

Footsteps approached the lounge, and Kent looked in.

"Seventeen of them," he said. "Mostly babies. I've warned the boys to keep a look-out for a day or two, but there’s nothing to be scared of now."

"I’m not scared."

"I suppose not—with Michael about" He paused "You realize he can't stay here tonight?"

Rennie hadn’t considered it "We’ll arrange something," she said. "He has friends in town."