They Met in Zanzibar (13 page)

“It’s quite charming. This is my first party since a long time before I left England.”

“That’s because I wasn’t here till you’d got dug in,” he said easily. “If I’d been on the spot when you arrived I’d have had them put on a special evening to welcome you.”

“I think the other way is best. I’d rather get to know people gradually.”

“Really?” There was probing in his voice. “Does that go
for everyone you meet?”

“Yes. And to answer your next question - particularly you.”

“Why? Did I make too sharp an impact at Zanzibar?”

“It’s hazed over now, and I’m beginning to accept you for what you are.”

In dangerously soft tones he said, just above her ear, “Don’t tell me what you think I am - not here where everyone can see us. I might have to retaliate.”

His arm was firm and warm across her back, his fingers held hers lightly, but she knew they’d tighten in a split second if she made even the slightest attempt at withdrawal. Carefully, she thrust away the knowledge that this was Steve who held her; being to
rn
between love and hate was a condition she couldn’t face up to. She had to try for indifference, and so far she wasn’t doing too badly at it.

“Very well, I won’t tell you what I think you are,” she said lightly. “You dance well, Steve.”

“Thanks,” with irony. “You’re not a bad little hoofer yourself. Aren’t you tired yet?”

“A bit. Do we break up at midnight?”

“Around that. We’re all going down for a bathe.”

“I didn’t bring a swim-suit, and I’d better go home, anyway. My father will be expecting me.”

“We can call in for your swim-suit and tell him.”

“To be honest, I don’t really want to go for a bathe. I can wait for that till morning.”

They danced in silence for a minute; it was one of those dreamy tunes that make one either sentimental or sleepy, and Peg was so determined not to soften that she found her eyes closing.

Till Steve said, quite calmly, “Did Jim tell you we didn’t play much poker last night? Some of them played, but he and I talked instead. He told me about that man you’re
hoping to marry - Paul Lexfield, isn’t his name?” Disparagement in his voice, he added, “I’d never have guessed you were capable of prising a chap away from his
fiancée
, though they do say love makes crooks of us all. You’ve always struck me as a well-scrubbed young woman, inside and out - which only shows that one shouldn’t trust one’s instincts.”

Peg was jerked wide awake. “Am I supposed to answer that?”

“It’s not like you to ignore an accusation.”

“And what are you accusing me of - stealing Paul from another woman? I didn’t. He was never hers.”

“That’s a get-out, young Peg. If you hadn’t been around he’d have married her.” The music was ending and he was manoeuvring her close to one of the doors, “Let’s get some
air.

But when they were outside she remained close to the doorway, though she accepted a cigarette and a light. The air was cool in the half-lit terrace and she breathed it gratefully.

Steve spoke again, almost irritably. “I can’t imagine you mixed up in a triangle of that kind. You told me you’ve known this Paul since you were a child, that you’ve loved him for years. I don’t believe it’s possible for a child to love in that way - so that when she grows up it’s a passionate and mature emotion. You had a crush on him - it’s happened a million times - and when he turned up after an absence of two or three years you’d passed from girlhood into womanhood. You were ready to love someone in an adult way, and because you’d admired him tremendously as a child you fastened on to Paul Lexfield.”

“That’s not true,” she said at once, and waited for a minute while her pulses slowed. “It was something you wouldn’t understand. I’ve told you before how differ
ent.”

“Oh, sure; you’ve said it so often you’ll have me believing it. So Paul is one of these complicated individuals who needs a woman, but he isn’t sure which. He’d always thought of you as a charming child - which I’ve no doubt you were! - and while away from home for a long spell he fell for someone nearer his own type and age; he even asked her to marry him. Then he brings her home, to show her this marvellous ancestral mansion which she is to embellish.
..”

“It’s a farmhouse, not a mansion!”

His eyes glinted in the dim light. “Does that make your cheating more honourable?”

She flamed suddenly. “Don’t you dare call me a cheat!
I made no attempt to get close to Paul; in fact, after Vanessa had been down to Berners End I just wished they’d marry, so that I could get over the way I felt, and forget it.
But ...
Paul gradually became aware that he’d made a mistake. All those months we didn’t talk of loving each other, either of us - not a single word.”

He flung out a hand, and made an exclamation that sounded like “Bilge!” Then, intelligibly, he said, “It doesn’t have to be talked about. There’s nothing so tangible as unspoken attraction between the sexes. It’s like a cord roping you together. How did you feel when this other woman was thrown from her horse?”

“Terrible.”

“Pitying her, or yourself?”

Peg flicked her cigarette out into the overgrown garden. “I was sorry for her, but I pitied Paul,” she said steadily. “He’d told me some days before it happened that he knew he’d made a mistake and was going to ask Vanessa for his freedom.”

“And then it was too late to do anything till she was cured. Why did he wait a few days?”

Peg’s blue eyes were dark and cold as she looked up at him. “I never asked him, but I can guess why. Paul detests hurting people and he couldn’t tell her suddenly, without warning. He was waiting for an opportunity of leading up to it.”

“That’s rich. He gets engaged to a woman and then discovers she won’t do but hasn’t the pluck to tell her outright. So he procrastinates, and he’s caught. Maybe that’s all he deserves, but you were young and trusted him.”

“You’ve just said I was a cheat.”

“It was cheating, but perhaps you didn’t realise it. He didn’t want Vanessa and he did want you - and you thought you wanted him. So when you came away you made promises.”

“Which I intend to keep.”

His stare was cool and speculative. “What was the last news you heard from him?”

“That Vanessa was having therapy and she might be normal in about two months.”

“You’re a convalescent nurse. Why don’t you go over and nurse her? then the two of you could tell her together.”

“You’re very amusing, Steve. I don’t know why my father spoke to you about this last night, but it’s certainly not your business.”

“He probably had his reasons.” He tossed away his cigarette with an unnecessary force. “You think you could settle in a place like Berners End after Motu? And do you think a man who’d decided to marry someone else but changed his mind would measure up to all you want in a husband? I doubt it.”

She spoke deliberately, to mask a swift pain. “Personally, Steve, I believe that a man who’s mistakenly become engaged to the wrong woman is much easier to understand and forgive than a man who makes a pass at every presentable woman and takes care not to tie himself to one.”

He smiled tigh
tl
y. “I’m not asking you to forgive
me
,
sweetie; you save it all for Paul - he’ll need it. I’ll call Foster. It’s long after your usual bedtime, so perhaps he’d better take you home now.”

It was an unsatisfactory conclusion to the talk, but Peg was relieved. Steve could so easily shatter this new mood of hers and she wanted to cling to it till a few things were resolved. She lifted a perfunctory hand and went inside the club, and a moment later Michael came over and said Steve had told him she was ready to go. Peg said her good-nights and sat beside him in the small car.

“I enjoyed it immensely,” she told Michael, when they reached the Maldon bungalow. “I’ve discovered a flair for flirtation and two or three more bachelors to practise on.”

“I’m available, too, you know.”

“I like you too much to flirt with you. Be seeing you, Michael.”

“Next Saturday? It’s a big turn-out, with everyone there.”

“I must look out my tiara. Goodnight.”

The next two or three days we
r
e tearingly busy for Peg. Her father, a sluggish accountant, had suddenly decided that his ledgers must be put straight. If they went short on cash he would have to approach the bank for a small overdraft to tide them over till the agent in Singapore began sending cheques, and it was no use going to a bank manager without tidy, up-to-date accounts. The state of his books, in fact, rather appalled Peg.

“I know you’re anything but a bookkeeper, darling,” she said with a rueful smile, “but you might have some sort of
order among these papers. There are mount
ains
of them. May I destroy all these pencilled scraps, to begin with?”

“Lord, no!” said Jim. “There’s a date and a figure on every one; that’s the number of boys working.”

“But don’t you have a wage book?”

“There’s one somewhere. We’re not all that finicky on Motu. Our taxes are paid on the acreage and the number of workers, and it’s easy enough to count the men on my land. We’re supposed to show the numbers working and those sick or absent for other reasons, but no one ever asks for figures. They’re all there, though,” he ended quite virtuously. “I always ask my head man for the day’s tally.”

“Well, I’ll separate them and get them written up in the book - if I can find it. Have you an accounts file?”

He produced it victoriously, after rummaging through two or three desk drawers. “You file the stuff, Peg, and then I’ll enter it. And see if you can find my last couple of tax receipts; the bank manager will definitely want to see those.”

“I’m all for getting this mess into some sort of order; I’d no idea all this was lying in your locked drawer! But can’t we get along without an overdraft?”

“For a month or two, yes. But I’ve never been one of these fellows who save and invest. Right up till recently, I kept two homes going, and a plantation is like a life insurance; you can always borrow on it if necessary.”

Peg, thumbing through the formidable heap of papers, asked casually, “So Steve hasn’t changed your mind yet?”

“You can’t change your mind unless there’s something to change it
to
.
For me, there’s nothing, except living right here on my own acres. If I sold I’d be exchanging a good life for no life at all.”

Which Peg understood. She herself had been here only about three months, but already she felt she belonged among the Maldon palms. She couldn’t imagine the plantation absorbed into an estate, the house either demolished or used as a storehouse.

She found the wage book and entered up the huge pile of pencilled figures. She filed the accounts and receipts, was floored by the cash book and the lack of anything with which to cross-check her father’s scribbled items. The Professor, he told her in mitigation, didn’t keep account books at all; he had a tea-chest with a slot in the top, and into this he posted everything as it arrived, so that if the time ever came when he’d need to know how he stood ...
well...

“Well...” Peg
echoed. “If the old dear is selling I hope he can find his title deeds!”

Much though he hated desk work, Jim himself strove hard to achieve order out of the chaos. It took the two of them three days of labour and they celebrated on the fourth by taking their lunch down to the beach, having a swim before it and a long lounge after it, followed by a spell of water-skiing for Jim, with Peg driving the small speedboat.

The evening which followed the happy day in the open air was one of the best Peg had known with her father. They were both drowsy, and lying in their chairs they talked of all sorts of things. Peg laughed sleepily at his jokes and led him to tell more of his tall stories. Without any reserve or self-pity, he reminisced about her mother, who’d always seemed young and gay and appealing, even after Peg had grown into an adolescent.

“What a life we could have had together here,” he said, “all three of us. By now, you’d probably have been married to one of the men here.” He gave a laugh that held no bitterness. “I wonder if he’d have gone in with the others, and left your old man to carry his torch alone? Depends on the chap, I suppose. I’ve come round to not
blaming
any of them. Shall we have a nightcap?”

“You’ve had enough to drink. I’ll make some tea.”

“No, I’ll have whisky. Don’t you worry about my intake, Peg. I’m a copra ruffian, and the true type can take whisky like water. Give me plenty of ice.”

They said goodnight, and Peg went to bed feeling warm and comforted. Their relationship had entered a new phase, and she found that her love for her father wasn’t the blind, girlish thing it had been; because she understood him better her regard for him now had just a little in common with her mother’s; she could see so clearly how it had been with them.

Next morning Peg was busy again. Dr. Passfield came over, and because he was short of
an orderly Peg travelled with him to the next plantation and helped with the records and dressings. When she got back she discovered that another meeting of the labourers was in progress, and Nosoap, when questioned at lunch-time, divulged its purpose. The workers had heard that a bonus scheme would operate on the company’s copra estate, and they wanted to know whether Tuan Maldon would start something similar on his plantation. Peg told him to wait and see. It would be quite some time before the various plantations were merged into one estate, and the bonus scheme would not operate till a given date.