Mayenga Farm (23 page)

"Won’t you even have some coffee?" Rennie urged. "Or perhaps a cup of tea?"

"No!" Now that her sympathetic companion was out of hearing, Adela had gained sudden strength, "Rennie, I've a feeling you must have been in the plot. Please be truthful, and remember that I’m Jackie’s mother, and very badly hurt. Did Jackie confide to you the dreadful thing she contemplated doing?"

Rennie had a fleeting, absurd vision of Jac flinging herself into the Lamu.

" What... where is she?"

"On her way to England," announced Adela viciously, yet with something of the manner of a great actress. "With that young fool,

Michael Rogers."

Rennie’s mouth opened; her throat went harsh.

"Are you sure?"

"Take a look at this!"

The hotel notepaper shook in Rennie’s fingers, nor was she very successful in smoothing it out, but after a moment she steadied enough to decipher the hasty round scrawl.

" Adela, darling" (Jackie had written). "You’re going to abominate me for running out, but I can’t act otherwise. I’m flying to England with Michael Rogers this morning and I’m arranging for you to be given this after breakfast. How lucky for me that you always breakfast in your room, and are not too upset if Jackie doesn’t come in and kiss you good morning. Michael and I are in love and will be married as soon as possible after we reach London. We have known each other for years —Rennie will bear me out and explain— and when he followed me to South Africa I knew I could never escape him. I joined the tennis club, not for the exercise which you considered so necessary to my figure, but because Michael belonged to it and we could meet often. He’s been a perfect angel all these weeks, pretending, except when we were alone, to be the coolest of acquaintances. He even aided and abetted in the matter of Kent, because he knew that so long as you believed I'd marry him you’d keep me in Gravenburg and we could be together. I’ve been a beast to you but I hope that in time you'll forgive me. I haven’t done anything wrong in loving Michael. Yes, I did beg Popsie not to come to Gravenburg for my twenty-first. I was so afraid you’d force something with Kent, and Michael wasn't ready to waft me away."

"Please tell Rennie that Michael wanted awfully, right from the beginning, that she should share our secret, but I was too scared to let it go beyond the two of us. Besides, I rather thought she’d disapprove of my using Kent, and perhaps force me to be honest. I made Michael take the casual pose because it was safest. What Kent will think of me I daren’t imagine, but it was your fault, Adela, that I persuaded him to like me. You must admit that."

"I shall write a long letter to Father all about Michael, and if he withholds financial help we shall just have to do without it. For the first time in my life I’ve learned that money isn't everything. Do go to Cape Town, darling. Popsie needs you so much and I’m sure, after this, that you’ll need him, too. Your loving Jackie."

Rennie had scarcely raised her eyes from the astounding epistle before Adela demanded, "Well, what do you make of it?"

"They're in love," she said dazedly. "Jackie and Michael!"

"So she states, but it’s preposterous. How could she possibly be in love with a penniless writer!"

"Penniless at the moment, but you may not have heard that he's engaged on a book..."

"Oh, yes, I have! A novel about South Africa. Jackie took care to enlarge upon it only yesterday, but I never suspected. . . . He'll never be able to give her the luxuries she's been used to. Mark my words, they’ll be divorced in a year."

"They won’t," remarked Rennie. "Michael will know how to manage her, and in any case, Jac has a backbone as stiff as yours when necessary."

The shaft of flattery went home. Adela's ego spread like a peacock's tail.

"I shall go to Cape Town at once," she said, rising to her feet with hauteur. "My husband will be most distressed if Jackie's letter reaches him before I do."

And so would Adela, thought Rennie, hoping she was not being too feline in her summing-up of the woman's character. Mrs. Caton's selflove would receive a deadly blow if Jackie's elopement stripped half the importance from the long-delayed reconciliation between herself and her husband.

During her visit Adrian had remained, an interested audience, in his chair at the table. He had made no effort to join in the conversation, and only raised his brows when Adela sailed away without even a nod of farewell. When Rennie came back after speeding the older woman on her way, he inspected the cover of his book, thoughtfully.

"A storm in a treacle-pot," he commented. "But that woman just loved it. It's wonderful how some people wallow in seething and gnashing their teeth." He paused. "Rennie, why were you so dumbfounded about Jackie and Michael? They're obviously suited."

Rather wearily, she sank into another chair and leaned forward, elbows on the table, face held between her hands. A deep sigh escaped her.

"It appeared fantastic. How could they possibly hide their feelings so perfectly—deceive everyone for so long?"

"Temperaments differ, and they had a strong incentive. Come to that, you conceal things pretty well yourself."

She looked at him, and away again. "You’re referring to what I knew about the connection between them? I couldn’t betray Jackie’s confidence."

"Quite. There seems to have been a lot going on of which I’ve been blandly unaware." Another pause. "That letter of Jackie's was confusing. Where does Kent come in?" he asked.

Her gaze became concentrated on the intricate pattern of the basket-work table.

"He cares for Jackie. At first, before she and Michael had met in Gravenburg, she was infatuated with Kent— she told me so. You know how fascinating Jackie can be when she tries, and with Kent she put out all she knew, first because she wanted attentions from a man of his sort, and later to hoodwink her mother. He's in for a nasty jolt."

Adrian shrugged. He couldn't pretend to understand this business. "Better now than later. Jackie’s no life partner for a forestry man. How is he to be told?"

"I've been wondering about that. Mrs. Caton’s a coward— she'll simply disappear and leave him to find out. This kind of thing can’t be written in a letter, and even if it could. . . Rennie hesitated. "Couldn’t . . . you perhaps get in touch with him?"

Adrian was startled. "I should say not! Kent's private affairs aren’t my business. Besides, I think he’d prefer to hear the brutal truth through the normal channels—club gossip, and so on, with no one else the wiser. That way it would be easier to live down. After all, Kent's not a boy nor a fool. You may be sure that however fond he was of Jackie, he had no illusions about her."

True enough. Rennie recalled her talk with Kent down by his own wild rock-pool. Jackie, he'd averred, was born sophisticated. He hadn't missed her faults, nor underrated them. But love that encompasses both vice and virtue is impregnable and lasting.

That afternoon a second enquirer came to look over the farm, an immigrant newly from England. Glumly, he shook his head. The acreage was too big; would Mr. Gaynor consider carving up the land into two or three separate lots ? Mr. Gaynor wouldn't . . . couldn't be bothered with it. So that was that.

George, the houseboy, having been informed that his employment must cease at the end of the month, packed his few pieces of clothing and revered jujus into his bright red tin box, threw his native-store blanket about his shoulders, and stalked off at once, the box on his head. At last he had an excuse for a spell of complete idleness. This time not even his father-in-law would be able to send him back to work.

The sheds were empty of all but the old car. The young fruit trees were beginning to drop leaves, the pea haulms yellowed, the beet and onions sent out flowers. Pumpkins were rotting on the plants or splitting wide and dispersing seed. Except for the horses in the cow pasture, the place had a dejected, untenanted atmosphere. The riding school in Gravenburg had offered to buy Paddy and his companion, and had generously agreed to their use of the horses till the last day; a fact which consoled Rennie for, apart from house-keeping, there was so little—beyond visits to the growing library—to occupy her. A daily gallop on Paddy became indispensable.

Adrian, fitfully attempting research for his lectures and thinking a great deal about her, could not make up his mind whether it would not be kinder to have done with Mayenga right away, before Kent showed up. An agent could handle the sale, and the two of them might stay comfortably in an hotel till the tour began. Sea air and a totally different environment were well-known tonics, and she would have a chance of meeting people who knew nothing of stalk-borer and cotton weevils and cattle diseases. He would like to see her dancing again, and eating one of those colored mixtures from tall glasses.

Towards the next week-end he received an unexpected invitation from Mr. Morgan. Would Mr. Gaynor and Rennie care to lunch and dine with him on Saturday, and spend the afternoon on the river? Recalling the disastrous finish to her evening with Kent at the Yachting Club, Rennie would have preferred to decline, but her father looked so pleased at the prospect of long hours in the bookseller’s company that she couldn't help but acquiesce.

"Do you think he's heard that we’re leaving?" she asked.

"He may have. I hope he hasn't invited too many others along, though I do rather like the old judge. I never have had a good look at his books—except for the few he lent while I was laid up."

"It's not too late, darling."

"I suppose not. We might go there on Sunday, and give ourselves a week-end to remember."

A note of acceptance was despatched to Mr. Morgan, and Rennie spent a couple of hours trying to create a modern frock from one of her well-worn linens. Not that Mr. Morgan would notice what she wore, but her self-esteem was in need of a fillip.

How glad she would be to earn money and buy some good clothes. What a joy to possess matching accessories and a good supply of dainty underwear. One had to live in a hot climate for a while to appreciate fully the comfort of cool silk against the skin and a well-fitting shoe.

They drove to town on Saturday, and turned from the main road into one of the well-established residential districts. There, among bougainvillea and Canary palms, they found Mr. Morgan’s Cape Dutch dwelling, and Mr. Morgan himself absorbedly comparing his euphorias with an illustration in a gardening book. From his expression the similarity between the two could not have been very marked.

He greeted them cheerily, his eyes twinkling at Rennie as if

there were nothing he liked better than to entertain a pretty young woman. They lunched in a cool, dim room, and the two men talked books, and still more books.

When, a little later, they rested in the lounge, it came to Rennie that, now Mayenga was to fade into the past, this kind of thing would constitute her life with her father. He would fraternize with elderly bachelors, discuss history and literature with them.

She and Adrian would share rooms at the college, or a small house in the vicinity, and the people they entertained would follow a dry, bookish pattern. They would treat her with the old-fashioned courtesy which seemed to be the prerogative of the old and unmarried, and among them there might be one with the temerity to propose that she marry him.

Rennie stifle a frightened, hysterical laugh. The whole picture was too dreadfully, heart-breakingly absurd, but just sufficiently within the limits of possibility to hang about on the rim of her mind.

On the river her imagination cooled, but it wrenched her to glide along the lovely reaches of the Lamu for the last time. When they had bought Mayenga she and her father had declared an intention to acquire a boat "some time." It had turned out that their part of the river was not navigable, which, they had agreed cheerfully, was just as well; it prevented them from regretting their lack of a craft

Presently, Mr. Morgan exclaimed, "We’re at the polo field. Look, Rennie, the game is on."

Her blood quickened. She shifted her seat in order to view the distant, thudding horses and their lithe, white-clad riders. Kent had said he might come in from camp for the polo.

Striving to keep her voice normal, she said, "Who’s playing for Gravenburg?"

He gave her the names, all unfamiliar. "I’ll stop the engine and we’ll watch. By Jove—did you see that, Adrian? A splendid follow through!"

Kent, he kindly informed her without being asked, had dropped out of this week’s team, but they were hoping to collar him for next Saturday’s game with stiff rivals. They needed more players of his reckless type.

She sank into a lethargy, stirred to drink a cup of tea from the flask, and relaxed again, to listen to their comments on the match. This, apparently, was to be her father’s day—a conclusion which was confirmed a few hours later.

For Mr. Morgan had prepared a surprise party for Adrian Gaynor. After dinner, other guests came. There were the judge and members of the Yachting Club with their wives, several of the library committee, and others. News that he was to take a lectureship in Cape Town had

prompted the decision to give him a literary and musical send-off.

It was a grand evening. With windows wide to admit the high-pitched singing of crickets and the scent of nicotiana, a jolly audience applauded songs and piano solos. A golden-voiced man recited from Tennyson and Byron, and a few members of the local dramatic society gave a scene from Henry V.

Adrian loved everything: the people and their kindness no less than the beauty they tried to interpret. His speech, after coffee and snacks, was a masterpiece of erudition and restrained emotion.

Driving home, Rennie smiled at him affectionately. "How does it feel to know that Gravenburg likes you so much?"

"I find it a little saddening. They're great people, Rennie, seeking strenuously for culture, and so grateful for a fresh slant on things. There's no question of their trying to be what they’re not. They make me wish I'd concentrated and made a more worth-while attempt at farming."

"Good heavens. What's the connection?"