Mayenga Farm (5 page)

She made an acknowledgment. Jacqueline shifted, so that the extra chair was placed between the two girls. Kent hitched his trousers and sat. Jackie leaned towards him, interested and excited.

"Rennie said there were no men in these parts," she exclaimed. "The place seems packed with them."

"Perhaps," suggested Kent as he studied the wine list, "she meant no Englishmen. She’s a conservative young woman with all

the independence of her race."

"I’m English, too, though perhaps a little less independent than Rennie. You're the first South African I’ve spoken to."

"No, really?" — with gentle astonishment. "That’s a grave responsibility for a man who is out of practice. Maybe a drink will help. What would you like, Mrs. Caton . . . and Jacqueline?" A pause. "Well, Rennie, what’s yours?"

"Grenadilla, please," she replied politely, and sat back, withdrawing slightly from the conversation.

Jacqueline scintillated. Rennie had never seen her with a man before — a bachelor, that is — and she sat feeling faintly stunned by the mobile beauty of Jac’s face, her quickness to take a point, the fascinating droop of lids when she smiled. She was all black and white and scarlet. She had little tricks, too, which were totally new to Rennie. For emphasis her fingers would flutter near to his, but never touch him. When he explained something her eyes opened very wide, so that the lashes curled back almost to her eyebrows, and her mouth quivered with a sort of tremulous bliss. Her sophistication had an intriguing transparency.

Presently Kent took her off to dance. An acquaintance of Adrian's invited Rennie to do the same, and when she came back, exhilarated and smiling after two long dances, Kent was standing with a drink in his hand, talking to Adrian, and Jackie and her mother were absent.

Rennie took the chair next to her fathers, but Adrian caught sight of old Mr. Morgan and excused himself.

Kent said coolly: "Would you like to dance again?"

"Not yet, thank you."

"Good." He dropped into Adrian’s chair and set down his glass. "I loathe dancing."

"Why? Aren't you very good at it?"

He gave a brief, hard laugh. "By that token you should loathe farming. How's the cotton?"

"Not too bad."

"No red stainer?"

"We sprayed the kapok trees with a solution that my father made up. It's too early to say whether it's worked."

He offered cigarettes, and when she shook her head, slipped one between his own lips and set a match to it.

"I know the spot you’re in." he said. "Your father is a likeable man, but he's no practical farmer. It’s a pity he didn't realize it before he bought Mayenga, but in any case, you shouldn’t object

to accepting a little advice on his behalf."

"We take the agricultural periodicals. They help us quite a bit."

"All right"—with irritation. "Let's talk about something else. Why did you tell your friend that there are no men in this district?"

"I told her I knew no men, which is a different thing entirely."

"You know me."

"Do I?" Rennie's head turned his way for a second. "Jacqueline was interested in eligible young men."

"So you consider me neither young nor eligible?" Needing no reply, he added rather forcibly: "There are a few things you still have to learn, little one, and not only about farming."

"I'm sorry," she said swiftly, contritely. "I didn't intend a personal hurt. You just don't strike me as the kind of man who'd allow emotions to clutter his life. To marry, you've got to believe in a woman . . . trust her. I rather think you'd find that terribly difficult. Perhaps one day-"

"I shall fall in love?" he finished with cold mockery. She hadn't meant to say that at all, but the contempt in his expression, the set of his chiselled features, drew sparks from Rennie. Her chin lifted, her mouth set.

"No," she told him. "You'll never fall in love. If you ever marry it will be for the convenience of having a wife, the pride of possession, like your house and your forest."

"How right you are!" he said in the same uncompromising tone. "Have another grenadilla with me and we'll drink to peace and goodwill at Christmas-time."

She held herself averted. Kent stubbed his cigarette and lit another, and then Adrian prised himself away from his pet discussion with the old bookseller on the subject of a public library for Gravenburg, and brought Adela Caton pack to the table. Jacqueline turned up, squeezed between two gay young men, and Rennie was invited by one of them to dance. With relief she detached herself from the group.

It was nearly two o'clock when they met together again in the foyer, ready to leave.

Kent said: "Have you fixed anything for tomorrow?"

"Nothing at all," Jackie answered at once, eyes alight and wholly expectant.

"Will you all come to the polo in the afternoon and back to

Elands Ridge for dinner?"

"I have work which must be done tomorrow," said Rennie instantly. "But Mrs. Caton and Jackie will welcome the change from Mayenga."

"What about you, Mr. Gaynor?" Kent cut in.

"I'll stay with Rennie," her father said placidly. "I like to watch polo but I’m not a genuine late-nighter."

Kent waited and saw them into Adrian's car. To Mrs. Caton and Jackie he smiled: "Tomorrow, then. I'll send for you around three. I’d come myself but there will be other guests." He stepped back. "Good night."

As the car swerved out to the road Jackie cuddled into her corner, the lambskin snug about her chin.

"He's handsome," she whispered, "and cold as steel, and exciting. I don’t know how you can be so indifferent to him, Rennie!"

Indifferent? Could one term as indifference the antagonism that fought to come out in words whenever they conversed ? Rennie had never so thoroughly disliked a man in all her life.

CHAPTER FOUR JACKIE, delicious in an emerald linen suit, a soft white beret perched upon her black curls, white sandals, and cherry red nails to match her lips, had gone off with Adela in Kent's maroon car, driven by a tall thin native in spotless bush shirt and shorts. The triumphal exit had left the house tranquil and brooding.

Rennie changed into a working frock, saddled Paddy, and rode up-river to where the maize ended and the cotton began. It had not rained for more than a fortnight and between the plants the bare earth was caked and cracking wide. Cobs were forming on the maize and in order to expand and reach full size they needed water, storms of it. As for the cotton — Rennie sighed. There was the river and here the hundred or more acres of scrawny plants, but how to soak one with the other was beyond her ingenuity. Adrian said it couldn't be done without expensive pumping machinery, but Fourie had suggested deepening and widening the irrigation canals and running pipes through the river bank a foot or two below water level. Fourie's method would be cheaper, but too protracted to be of much help to this season's crops. She would definitely have the channels widened at once, to get all possible benefit from the next rains, and if the crop failed as cotton she would leave it for cotton-se ed, though it was bound to be of poor yield and quality. However, it was something to have come to a decision about the beastly stuff.

She took the beaten earth track at the end of the maize fields, and presently came to the main road through the farm, on the other side of which lay acres of cowpeas, soya beans, and the young fruit orchard which would not begin to earn its keep for another two years. Already, from dryness or some obscure disease, the soya beans were losing their lower leaves, reducing the hay value as cattle feed. She supposed they ought to have an expert opinion on the condition, but such things cost money.

She found Adrian in one of the sheds, mixing some phenothiazine paste for the half-dozen cows. He smiled up at her from his stool, and moved the container of powder so that she could rest on the low bench in front of him. She slid down, pushed back her hat, and rested her cheeks in her hands.

"You hate that messy job, don’t you?"

"The mixing is easy enough — the difficulty is in getting the animals to lap it up. I've tried pushing it down their throats with a tube, and blending it with food, but cows aren't nearly the gullible idiots you'd think. When I give them the preliminary shot of salt solution they know the phenothiazine is coming after, and it takes all the boys to handle them. I'm still of opinion that it would be better to give them tablets."

"Tablets are even more expensive than the powder."

"We could buy them less often — say twice a year."

"But we know that our piece of grazing is worm-infested. Think how disastrous it would be if we lost cows through neglect. Let me help you with the dosing."

"Certainly not; it isn't woman's work. You do more than your share — too much." Adrian uncorked the bottle of soft soap, added a dash of it to the mixture in the tin bowl on his knees, and went on stirring with the old wooden spoon. Speculatively, he searched Rennie's face. "You've been restless since Jackie came. Does she set you longing for the luxuries you haven't got?"

"Not a bit," she replied at once. "Jac's a high-spirited person and she infects us all . . . including you, darling."

"I know that. But soon she’ll be twenty-one, and not long afterwards you’ll reach the same age. There’ll be big celebrations in Cape Town for Jackie. What about you?" "The harvest will be here. We’ll know the worst." "Whatever the harvest," he stated firmly, "you’re going to have a holiday for your coming-of-age ... a couple of weeks at a good hotel on the coast, and some nice clothes

to wear while you’re about it."

She smiled at him and let it pass. Adrian set aside the bowl and wiped his hands, and she saw him catch sight of the corpulent baobabs through the cloudy window, and his whole expression go dim and dreamy. She wouldn't mind betting that he was at his favorite pastime of calculating the fabulous age of the trees.

Presently she reminded him gently, "The cows’ medicine, darling. I’ll go and pack away the butter and see that the dairy is clean, and when you’re through we'll call it a day and have an early cold supper." She laughed. "Won’t it be nice to have a long quiet read together after two evenings of Jackie?"

After supper, Adrian sat at the writing table, pencilling notes on the short history of South African literature, and Rennie, on his recommendation, began reading a book-length appreciation of the work of Olive Schreiner. Rufus, the ridgeback, lay on the rug between them in that beatific state of drowsiness which domestic pets, in common with some humans, are apt to achieve after a good meal.

Normally, Rennie would have become as absorbed as her father, but tonight a vague dissatisfaction spoiled her enjoyment of the printed word. Would it appear ungracious if she turned in before Jackie and her mother came in? Oh, but that was impossible, for her bed was in the hall, through which they must pass to their own bedrooms, and in any case, Adela couldn’t sleep unless she had malted milk before retiring, and there was no one but Rennie to prepare it. She hoped they would not be too late.

At ten-thirty Adrian shuffled his books together.

"Bedtime, my dear. You look tired."

"You go. Your sleeping porch is like a remote private room. I’ll get ready for bed and jump in as soon as they’re home."

"I’d forgotten the Catons. I like your friends, Rennie, but I’m not sorry that this is the third night of their four. In our present financial state, guests of their type are a strain for you. You won’t ask Jackie to stay on?"

"I don't think so, and Adela wouldn't allow it, anyway. She watches Jac like a Spanish duenna."

"With reason." Adrian shrugged humorously and stood up. "She’s certainly a whole-time job for a parent. I’m thankful she isn’t my daughter. Now then, Rufus" — prodding the dog with his toe — "out you go, you parlor hound." He bent for Rennie’s kiss. Affectionately, she touched his temple, where the hair was beginning to show white.

"Don't read too long, and don’t forget to pull the mosquito net. Good night, darling."

Rennie put away her book and straightened chairs and cushions. The house went quiet. Soon after eleven she got into pyjamas and dressing gown and made up her divan. Her feet had gone cold and she shivered a little with overtiredness. She went into Jackie’s room, removed the vase of flowers, set a match to the lamp, and opened the bed. Turning, she saw herself in the mirror: small, pale features, the tawny hair tied with a white ribbon, her slender figure wrapped in a faded blue candlewick gown. It was a long time since she had really studied her reflection, and she did not stop to do so now, but she did notice a dusting of freckles across her nose which had not been there in England, and she supposed her complexion showed other signs of her outdoor existence. Certainly her hands were too brown and the nails too blunt. It hadn’t depressed her before Jackie came.

In Adela's room she again lit a lamp and turned down the sheet. Carefully, she arranged the folds of the diaphanous white nightdress, and hung the pale green wrap over the back of a chair so that it should be handy. Amazing, the number of clothes Jackie and her mother had been able to squeeze into an air grip.

Rennie was just closing the door behind her when a car drew up on the road, and she stayed there in the corridor, listening to the voices approaching the porch; Adela’s, Jackie’s, and Kent’s. Now they were in the lounge, all three, their conversation unavoidably clear in this small house with thin dividing walls.

"Everyone seems to have gone to bed," came Jackie's bubbling tones. "Though Rennie can’t have — she sleeps on the couch in the hall."

"In the hall?" from Kent. "Why does she do that?"

"Just while Mother and I are here. The two bedrooms are small and have only a single bed each."

"In that case," said Kent, "if you were serious about prolonging your stay, you’d better transfer to an hotel. That child works hard enough to deserve a thorough rest at night."

"To be candid," Adela languidly remarked, "I’d feel more at ease in an hotel; I’m used to them, and it's such a boon to be able to ask for whatever one wants without having to wonder if one's being a nuisance. Rennie's a dear girl and does everything for our comfort, but farms bore me." A yawn. "It’s been a lovely day, Kent."