Mayenga Farm (7 page)

"Problem! You make it sound prosaic and soluble, but I wonder if it’s as easy as that? You remember Eunice Desmond, who was at school with us. She left before both of us and took up pharmacy. Well, when the war ended she came to live at Kensington and I saw her often, though we were never very friendly."

Rennie’s brain gyrated. Castledene and Eunice Desmond seemed worlds away from the sultry white heat of Mayenga.

"Eunice? Yes, I remember her."

"I thought you would. Eunice wrote to a brother in the Middle East every mail, and sometimes she let me read his letters. I was living with my grandparents, and having a thoroughly miserable time of it, so occasionally I sought out Eunice and had lunch with her. I was so unhappy. No boyfriends, no letters from abroad . . . not a scrap of fun . . .while other girls were having the gayest time of their lives. Can you imagine it?"

"So you wore bored and did something you shouldn’t," said Rennie practically. "What was it?"

"You’re so understanding, darling. Eunice was half to blame. She knew I envied her the letters from her brother, so she got one of his friends out there to write to me . . . a man named Michael Rogers. Michael was lonely, too, and he wanted a pen friend. So ... so I answered him."

Rennie laughed. "Why so tragic? What’s dreadful about that?"

"We’ve corresponded ever since, though I must admit I felt guilty about it. He sent me a small row of pearls as a Christmas gift just before I left England. I haven’t dared to wear them."

"Your mother knows nothing about him?"

"Heavens, no! Michael’s young and good-looking — of fairly good family, I believe — but he's just a soldier . . . or was. He sent me his photograph. Now, he's back in England and — what do you think, Rennie! — he wants me to marry him."

"Marry him! That’s going rather far, isn’t it? If you’ve never seen him you can't be in love with him."

"I told him that in a letter, but he’s the tenacious sort you know, thickset and shaggy-eyebrowed, and . . . and rather sweet... at least, he looks it. He suggested that we meet before deciding definitely about marriage, but I couldn't let him come to Kensington. I was terrified. Adela and the grand-parents would have been furious. You see, I must marry someone with money, and Michael has none."

"Has he threatened you at all? Are you afraid he'll produce your letters?"

"Oh, no. His face is honest; he wouldn't do that."

"Does he know where you are now?"

Jackie paused. "That's why I’m here this afternoon. Perhaps I was mad, but I wrote him the day we left telling him our friendship was over and that I was going to South Africa, probably for good. It seems that eventually he went to Kensington, and Grandpa, in a moment of aberration, gave him the name of our hotel in Gravenburg. I had a cable from Michael yesterday — mercifully Adela was resting. He's coming out!"

"Oh, dear. Can't you stop him?"

"He's on his way. Michael isn’t a soldier any longer — he's a journalist He says he has an assignment in Johannesburg, whatever that is, but he's coming here first. Rennie, I'm frantic!"

Rennie sat up straight "If he's coming all this way the least you can do is to see him, if only for a few minutes. You owe him that."

"I daren't. If Adela meets him there will be an explosion, for him and for me. She will carry me straight to Cape Town, and I'd hate that, especially just now when everything is so splendid. Ren, darling, you do see how I'm placed, don't you? You'll have to see him and convince him that he and I can never come together. Please, Rennie, you must do this for me."

Rennie sighed. "You're being horribly unfair to him, Jac, particularly if he loves you. After all, you must have led him on a little in your letters."

"Only a very little — I was afraid to go too far." Jackie sparkled with a new emotion. "But I hadn't met Kent then."

A curious dryness came into Rennie's throat. After a few seconds she asked, "Does Kent already mean a lot to you?"

"Yes, darling, he does."

"Are you in love with him?"

"He's all that I adore in a man." Jac's mouth pursed ecstatically. "He's ruthless yet chivalrous, he rides like a demon, he's charming."

"Do you meet him often?"

"Adela and I go to the Pinetree Club most nights, and Kent’s a member and often there. We've been to dinner at Elands Ridge three times, and have an invitation to the polo next Saturday, Ren," she reached over and excitedly shook Rennie’s wrist "Wonderful things are just beginning between Kent and me. He likes me; I’m sure of it. A man who has known him for years told me that he has never taken interest in any particular woman before. If that stupid Michael bursts in now he’ll spoil everything."

"I suppose your mother considers Kent a good match?" "Why, naturally. Kent has enough worldly goods to satisfy even Adela, and she dotes on the way he treats her. That’s why she’s consented to remain in Gravenburg." Swiftly, she snapped open her bag and drew out a small bulky envelope, which she tossed into Rennie’s lap. "Those are Michael’s pearls — nothing expensive but nicely graded. I’m glad now that I didn’t wear them. Your task will be easier if you return them to him when he comes — make it more final. His cable said he’d booked at Greenwood’s Hotel."

With some reluctance Rennie slipped the packet into her dress pocket. She had a trapped feeling. "How soon is he likely to arrive in Gravenburg?"

Jackie, merry with enormous relief, did some quick reckoning. "Tomorrow at the earliest, but maybe not for a few days. Some plane services take longer than others. I’ll write him a note at Greenwood’s begging him to contact you by messenger at once."

"I’m still unsure how to deal with him. It’s so shabby. . ."

"Not at all. I didn’t ask him to chase out here. Be firm with him. Explain to him the horrid situation he's landed me in, and how dangerous he has made it for both of us. Tell him to go on to his assignment. The sooner he forgets our silly pen-friendship the better."

"I’ll try."

"Ren, you precious angel, I shall be in your debt forever." And Jackie demonstrated the extent of her immediate gratitude with a hug and a hearty, girlish kiss.

Soon, she hurried to the coupe and sped away, cheerily flipping her fingers through the window as she took the bend out to the track. Watching the dust settle again, Rennie thought that this harmless affair fraught with peril was typical of light-hearted Jackie. Rennie didn't know how she was going to tackle the impecunious Michael, nor was she sure that Jackie deserved to be delivered from a collision with the young man. But Jackie was the type to sail through difficulties on another’s shoulders and manage to make life just as lively for her victim as for herself. Rennie shrugged unhappily.

So Kent was at last stirred to pay attentions to a woman. Was Jackie the explanation of his softer mood last Sunday morning? Rennie told herself that she ought to be overjoyed at the eventual possibility of having her girlhood companion as a permanent neighbor; but for some reason the picture of Jackie as mistress at Elands Ridge was distinctly distasteful.

However, the other business, with Michael, had more immediate importance.

Adrian must know nothing of the matter, for he was capable of considerable wrath if he thought Rennie was being misused. He would advocate leaving Jackie to stew in the mess of her own making, and he wouldn’t care too deeply if she came to grief. In his opinion she would have asked for it.

For two days Rennie hardly dared venture from the house and sheds, though she had to fabricate reasons why her father should drive out to the maize and cotton fields. On Friday afternoon the messenger came, a seedy-looking native who told Rennie that he must take back a reply or the baas in town would not pay his tip. The message, scrawled in a thick round hand on Greenwood’s Hotel notepaper, was uncompromisingly brief.

"Dear Miss Gaynor, Five minutes ago I arrived from England to find Jacqueline’s note asking me to contact you. Well, here I am. Please put me wise to the next step in this melodrama. Michael Rogers."

Rennie’s breathing hastened rather alarmingly. The time was four-thirty. It would take at least two hours to bathe and change, prepare Adrian’s evening meal and drive into Gravenburg. She turned over the sheet of paper and wrote: "I’ll come to the vestibule of your hotel at about six-thirty. Don’t get in touch with Jacqueline till we have met." To Adrian she later explained, "I had a note from a friend of Jackie’s — someone from England. They’ve asked me to town for an hour or two. Do you mind?"

"Glad for you, my dear, but don't drive back alone in the dark."

That, Rennie decided, could be worked out when the time came. Quite a lot was bound to happen between now and then, and her immediate needs were cold-blooded courage and an understanding smile. She slipped into the car and started off.

Supposing Michael were one of those blustering young men who wouldn’t listen to reason? He sounded pugnacious and

quite sure of what he wanted. Bother Jac and her "jams." Even at school they had always been silver-lined. Everything always came right for Jacqueline. Which brought Kent to Rennie’s mind; would he, too, "come right" for Jackie?

Rennie drove into the older part of the town, turned a corner and came to rest outside the archaic structure known as Greenwood’s Hotel. It was the sort of building that might have been conceived in the days when Gravenburg was a spatter of wooden shacks close to the river. She had never been inside it, though she knew it by reputation as slightly behind the times and favored, because of reasonable terms, for masonic dinners and board meetings. Well, here goes, thought Rennie, taking a deep breath, and she walked up the paved path between two borders of dried-up zinnias, mounted a few wide, flat steps, and entered the dim lounge-hall.

At first it seemed as though the place were completely deserted. Tapestry chairs were set at the wine tables, a long, low couch against each wall. In the farthest corner a bar was ready for the evening trade, but had no attendant. The whole building was eerily quiet.

Rennie had just realized that a reception desk existed in a novel position at one side behind the main doors, when something very tangible touched her shoulder.

She turned with a start, and looked into a square young face surmounted by unmistakable shaggy eyebrows and a thatch of slightly wavy, straw-colored hair.

"What an uncanny meeting," she said breathlessly. "Are you Michael?"

"I am. How do you do, Rennie Gaynor?"

She surveyed the lounge, her expression a trifle haunted. "Where can we go to talk?"

"This is rather morgue-ish, isn’t it? The other rooms are hardly better. You’re familiar with this town — what do you suggest?"

"There are one or two restaurants____"

"Or the Carlton Hotel," he pointedly remarked.

"Oh, no. The Carlton’s out," she said hastily. "Shall we just walk?"

"There’s no hope of seeing Jacqueline tonight?"

"None at all, I’m afraid. That’s one of the things I have to explain to you."

Michael was apparently acquainted with this particular disappointment. His shoulders lifted, resignedly. "All right. Let’s

make the best of it and have dinner somewhere."

As they went out into the gold-dusted evening, Rennie had compassion for the man at her side. He so obviously disliked the idea of discussing Jacqueline with a strange girl, but he was too eager for news of her to ignore this chance of the latest information. She wished he would ask questions, so that she could unburden at once and save him the bother of being conventional and attentive. But he plodded along with her like a nice bull mastiff, and she hadn't the heart to break the silence.

"What about this place?" he said suddenly.

It was Gravenburg's other club, less sporting than the Pinetree, but just as expensive. Several cars were parked on one side of the drive, and people in every kind of dress were taking drinks on the terrace.

"You can get the same sort of meal at a restaurant for half the price," she mentioned.

"To blazes with the expense. This is my first evening in South Africa." As a bitter afterthought he added, "I'm lucky to have a girl to share it with me. Come along in."

They did not linger to take an aperitif, but told the European head waiter that they wished to have dinner at once. He seated them at a table besides a glass-veneered and detailed one of the white-coated, black-skinned boys to serve them.

Michael ordered, and requested a bottle of wine — a good wine, he insisted, with a kick in it. He waited till he had had a drink before throwing back his head and meeting her gaze over the table.

"I'm fortified," he said. "Tell me about Jackie."

"Jackie," repeated Rennie carefully. "Try not to be hurt about this. Jackie can’t see you, tonight or at any other time. She wants you to consider whatever existed between you at an end."

"She said as much in a letter at Christmas. I demand reasons, good solid ones."

"Jackie has them. You haven’t even met each other. It’s so much easier to break now."

"Has she told you that I asked her to marry me?"

Rennie nodded. "Now that we’re acquainted I'm a bit surprised. You don't look the kind to write a proposal to a girl you don’t know."

"I'm not!" he said with vehemence. "I never proposed before in my life, and I never shall again, except to Jackie. You say I don’t know her. If you'd seen her letters. . . ." Embarrassment made him stutter and he tried again. "When you correspond regularly for two or three years, as we did, you learn lots of things about a girl . . . the little things that make up character. I gathered that she was fastidious and dainty, full of spirit — perhaps a wee bit selfish, but who isn’t? To read one of her letters was like taking a dip in a warm but turbulent stream. They kept me going when everything was drab and monotonous. I didn't idealize her — I’m too bedrock for that — but I suppose I fell for the personality which was revealed in her letters."

Without much appetite she took some of the soup and popped a pellet of bread into her mouth.

"I do realize that, but Jac can't marry you," she told him. "She was brought up in an atmosphere of luxury and she would expect to go on that way, after marriage. She's always had whatever she wanted, never been compelled to earn her own living."