The House of the Scissors (14 page)

Lucien raised his eyebrows. “All right,” he agreed. “I’ll make arrangements to go and see the dancing.”

Arab lay on the sofa, striving not to think about the pain in her ankle. It was the hottest part of the afternoon, when the very air itself seemed to be catching its breath before the cooler time of the evening:. What, she wondered, was she going to say to Sammy? The same question had been turned over and over in her mind ever since lunch, and she couldn’t put it off for very much longer because Sammy would soon call it a day. They had finished the whole assignment a day early and the next day had been declared a celebratory holiday. If she didn’t see him this evening, she might not see him at all.

There was a strange noise in the hall and Arab turned her head, trying to make up her mind whether she ought to go and investigate it. It was such an effort moving anywhere with this lump of plaster on the end of her leg! The door into the sitting room opened slowly and a totally strange woman stuck her head into the room.

“Hullo,” said Arab.

The woman jumped, then smiled, coming right over to the sofa and looking down at Arab with amused, familiar eyes. She was really very like Lucien.

“You must be Arab,” she said in a delightful, contralto voice. “The one who didn’t know enough—”

“To take off her shoes!” Arab finished for her.

The stranger laughed. “Hilary was quite right—you’re nice! But, forgive me, has Lucien been beating you up? You look a little the worse for wear!”

“I broke my ankle,” Arab explained.

The amused eyes twinkled at her. “I thought Lucien had been less resourceful than usual for a moment, and that was the only way he could get you to stay!” Arab veiled her eyes behind her long eyelashes. “I don’t know that he wants me to stay,” she said.

The eyes lost none of their amusement. “My dear, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry into what is, after all, your own business. I should have introduced myself, instead of embarrassing you, but then the Manners never did think before they spoke! I’m Ruth Dark.”

“Does Hilary know you’re here?”

“No, not yet. You’re the only person I’ve seen. I received this odd letter from Lucien.” Ruth Dark hesitated almost imperceptibly. “Do you know my sister-in-law?”

Arab nodded, saying nothing, in case it all came flooding out, even the details of how Lucien affected her and how he only had to appear for her to feel weak at the knees and short of breath, and a lot of other unpleasant things besides!

“She’s an unhappy sort of person,” Ruth continued. “What is all this about her taking your job? Did you agree, or were you pushed into it?”

“I agreed,” Arab said. “Sort of. I didn’t have much option really. I could hardly model the clothes myself with a broken ankle and washed-out with malaria.” She broke off, aware of an underlying bitterness in her words. “This was the big opportunity of my career, and I should have minded very much, but I didn’t. I thought I was heading straight for the top! But I don’t think I’m a very ambitious person after all.”

Ruth sat down on the leather chair opposite the sofa, crossing her legs in front of her with an easy elegance that Arab wished Sandra could have witnessed. If Sandra’s legs were admirable, they were quite put in the shade by those of Lucien’s sister.

“Ambition is a funny thing,” she remarked. “I never wanted to do anything much when my husband was alive. It was only after he died that I found I had this driving urge to achieve something—and not just anything! It had to be something as worthwhile as what Lucien was doing. Does that seem ridiculous to you?”

“Oh no!” Arab exclaimed.

Ruth smiled. “A lot of people do. Most think I ought to devote myself to Hilary and not gad about the countryside. Lucien encouraged me to do my thing though right from the start. Without him, I never could have done it!”

Arab’s eyes became soft and dreamy. “I’ve been typing his notes for him,” she said.

A chuckle was her only answer from Ruth and she became guiltily aware that she had sounded exactly like a stage-struck teenager. She tried to regain more solid ground by rushing into an explanation as to how she had been a shorthand-typist before she had been a model.

“Whatever made you admit such a thing?” Ruth demanded. “My dear girl, Lucien will
never
let you go! Nor will I, come to that! I don’t suppose you’re interested in anthropology? I have a mountain of notes that all need putting in order. Enough to keep you here for weeks!”

“But I don’t want to stay here for weeks!” Arab wailed.

There was another telling chuckle from Ruth. “Of course you don’t,” she said comfortably. “I expect you’re longing to get home. By the way,” she added, “what are all those people doing in the garden? Sandra looks very much at home in their midst.”

Arab made a face, an expression she had caught from Hilary. Ruth recognised it immediately and burst into laughter. “She has made a hit with you!” she drawled. She swivelled round in her chair, leaning forward to see better out of the window. “I hope my daughter hasn’t been sharing her prejudices with you. My word, poor Sandra!”

“She looks as though she’s doing all right to me!” Arab said grimly.

“Perhaps.” Ruth blinked at the picture of her sister-in-law drawing Sammy Silk’s arm through hers. Sammy was scowling and Sandra pathetically eager to please him. “Poor Sandra!” Ruth said again.

“Oh, but,” Arab began, “she hasn’t any long-term plans in the rag trade. She—she’s coming back. She wants to look at Lucien’s house in England.”

Ruth’s eyes widened.
“Lucien’s
house? That’s rubbish, my dear. Our parents live in the only house the Manners have in England, and they and Sandra are like chalk and cheese! I doubt very much if she’ll even visit them!”

“But she said—” Arab sounded flustered and a bit hurt. “I suppose she was trying to be kind—”

Ruth flashed her a quick look. “Sandra has never bothered to be kind. It would never occur to her. But I must say, this fellow doesn’t look very kind either. I hope Sandra doesn’t get hurt!”

“Sammy wouldn’t hurt a fly!”

“You may be right.” Ruth turned her back on the garden. “It looks to me as though Sandra may have to pay dearly for taking your job. Is this Sammy married?”

Arab shook her head. “He’s a widower. Jill is the only married person in the outfit. She’s been staying here with me ever since I broke my ankle,” she said hastily. “I’d have gone back to the hotel otherwise.”

The twinkle came back into Ruth’s eyes. “Can you stagger out into the garden?” she asked. “I think I’d like to meet your friends. Hilary’s letters didn’t say much about them.”

“They wouldn’t!” Arab retorted. “Every paragraph would begin with ‘Lucien says—just like her conversation!”

“You couldn’t be more wrong,” Ruth defended her daughter. “Every other paragraph began with ‘Arab says’! So there!”

Arab blushed scarlet, wondering what she could have said that would have been interesting to Hilary. “I hope I haven’t been misquoted,” she said in a stifled voice.

“Oh, I shouldn’t think so,” Ruth teased her. “Hilary is almost always accurate, especially when she likes the people concerned. I think she’s quite astute for her
age.
”

Arab wished she knew what Hilary had said about her, but as she couldn’t very well ask, she struggled on to her feet and began to propel herself across the room towards the french windows. Sammy had shaken off Sandra and was standing a little apart from the others, staring gloomily at a hibiscus flower. Arab, who had never looked at him in any other light other than as an employer, thought suddenly that despite his weight and build there was a romantic air about him. He had a dissipated, Byronic look that might appeal to Sandra. Was that what Ruth had seen? Arab felt a stirring of interest, but her spirits refused to respond. It was too good to be true! Sandra would work on Sammy for her own ends, but she would be back to reclaim Lucien as soon as she was ready, and there was nothing that Arab could do about it.

“I thought you’d be rejoicing, Sammy,” she said to his back. “I want you to meet Lucien’s sister.”

He turned, frowning. “Oh yes?” He dismissed Ruth with a scowl. “I have to talk to you, Arab. We’re flying to Nairobi tomorrow evening, ready to fly home the day after.” His frown became directly addressed to her. “You’re not coming with us. I’m taking Sandra instead.”

“But you can’t!”

His mouth turned down at the corners. “You must have seen it coming!” he said angrily. “Sandra is of more use to me than you are in your present state. Besides, you’ve got yourself a comfy job for the moment. Why not settle for that?”

“Because I came out here with you and I mean to go home with you!”

“You can follow, when you’re feeling better. It isn’t the end of the world, duckie. Am I an ogre now, for you to be looking at me like that?”

Arab winced. “You don’t understand! I
can’t
stay here!”

“You’ll have to! There isn’t another seat on the plane. This is the tourist season and all the planes are full—”

“Why can’t Sandra wait for a seat?” Arab pleaded.

“Because I want to work with her as soon as we get back to England,” Sammy declared brutally. “Heaven knows when you’ll be working again! You look wretched after that bout of malaria and you’re so thin, your bones are showing. I’m doing you a favour, love. This work was never really in your line anyway.”

Arab threw all caution to the winds, her temper rising. “I suppose I can thank Sandra for that last judgement too?” she suggested.

Sammy glared at her. “She noticed you were looking poorly. Surely you don’t resent that? What’s the matter with you? Always you’ve shown far too little temperament and now, when we can do without it, you look mad enough to be a full-blown star!”

“I
won’t
be left behind!”

Sammy shrugged his shoulders. “If you can find yourself a seat, come by all means!”

Arab went very white. She limped away from him as fast as she could, blindly looking about her for some kind of refuge from his cruelty. How could she stay? It had not been fair to Lucien in the first place, when he had taken her in because she was ill, but to do this to him was too much. It put them both in a false position. And what on earth were her parents going to say?

Jill watched her move away by herself, feeling bitter that Sammy should have found it necessary to hurt anyone so vulnerable. She thought she had a very good idea of how Arab was feeling, but at least she would be safe with Lucien Manners. He wasn’t the kind of man to take advantage of someone as innocent, so downright
young
as Arab! She sighed and went over to her.

“He told you at last, honey?”

Arab nodded. “I know it’s his fault, but somehow I can’t help blaming Sandra even more. She’d better not come anywhere near me this evening—I could tear her limb from limb!”

Jill suppressed a smile. “You look fierce enough to do it, but I fancy that she can run faster than you can at the moment!”

“Just as well!” Arab grunted.

“Yes, that’s all very well, but weren’t your parents going to meet you, hon? Why don’t you write them a nice long letter and I’ll give it to them the moment we arrive. They’ll be worried about you and it will ease their mind if I can tell them you are all right.”

“I’m not all right.”

“Of course you are, love. I’ve just been talking to Hilary’s mum. Now, she’s a darling—quite unlike that sister-in-law of hers! She’s agreed to take over where I leave off as far as you’re concerned, so I’ll be able to tell your parents that at least.”

“Oh no!” said Arab.

“What’s the matter? Don’t you like her?”

Arab nodded helplessly. “Of course I do! But I wish you could get it out of your head that I need a permanent bodyguard. I shall be
twenty-one
in one week’s time!”

But Jill refused to take any such protest seriously. “More a nurse than a bodyguard!” she smiled. “You keep a tight hold of nurse, my pet, or you will be finding something worse!”

“It couldn’t be worse! What will Lucien think? How can Sammy do this to me?” Arab’s voice rose in a crescendo of humiliation. “I don’t even know how long I have to foist myself on him!”

Jill looked smug. “But that’s what I’m trying to tell you, if you’d only listen, instead of feeling sorry for yourself. You’re staying here from now on as Mrs. Dark’s guest. It has nothing to do with Lucien. And that, my hot-headed friend, was
her
idea, so don’t go blaming me for it!”

“Really?” Arab’s relief knew no bounds. She saw Ruth Dark standing by herself on the other side of the lawn and, grasping Jill by the hand, she began the painful journey across the grass to her side.

“You manage that ankle of yours pretty well!” Ruth congratulated her.

Arab took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” she burst out. “Sammy shouldn’t have done it! I’ll go on the first available plane, I promise you!”

Ruth put her hands on her shoulders and kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll love having you! And unless my dear sister-in-law has changed a lot, I daresay this was all her idea and that poor Sammy is merely being played along. The joke is that Sammy looks quite like a shark and big game fishing is outside Sandra’s usual league.” She tried to look penitent and failed. “I’m not usually catty,” she added. “It’s one of the less delightful side-effects of being anywhere near Sandra, I’m afraid!”