They Met in Zanzibar (18 page)

“You’ll listen,” snapped Lynette. “I’ve no high principles, no noble sentiments. You’ve shattered my hopes and plans, and I’m not the type to let you enjoy what you’ve gained by it. The other evening my brother and I had dinner with Steve. I tried him out - as good as told him I’d marry him as soon as he liked. It was all in jest, but we understood each other. So I waited.” She drew a breath that sounded like to
rn
paper. “You know the sequel. He was friendly, even yesterday, when he told several people, and myself, that he was going to marry you.”

Peg only shook her head. Her nervous system seemed to have seized up, so that she couldn’t speak.

“So now you know why he’s marrying you, and in such a hurry. It’s to spite me, to get rid of me. That’s how Steve is with women.” The dark eyes looked hot and threatening, the husky voice was hard and cynical. “He won’t discard you; his code wouldn’t allow that. But mark this. He won’t drop his affairs. If he has to go away you won’t go with him; he’ll see to that. You’ll be his wife, but he won’t care much about you as a lover because his tastes run to women of experience who have rather more about them. You’re an offering to the company directors who want him to marry, a safeguard. And no women will ever follow him to Motu again because in future he’ll be able to tell them - at the last moment, of course - that he’s
ma
rried!”

Peg was leaning back, so that
t
he dressing table took her weight. “You’re being ... ridiculous,” she managed. “Steve wouldn’t propose to one woman to get rid of another. He wouldn’t mind if you stayed on here.”

“Wouldn’t he?” tight-lipped. “There’s a bit more you, haven’t heard. I didn’t know I was leaving today till last night. He arranged for a government plane to take me at ten-thirty - and
he’s
paying for it.” She looked at her watch. “It’s a close thing, but I intend to make it. Not for his sake or yours, but because
...”
She stopped, and a vicious smile bent her
li
ps. “You poor dope,” she said. “You’re welcome to all he wants to give you. You can have your pretty dress and the wedding ring and the glamour of changing your name to his - but that’s all you’ll get out of marriage with Steve. Imagine Steve Cortland with a sick wife! It’s hilarious.”

If Peg could have managed it she would have walked to the door and opened it and coolly waved her visitor away. But she felt paralysed;, there was a dreadful cold numbness in her limbs and her will seemed to have been bludgeoned. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

Her very stillness infuriated Lynette. The dark girl came nearer, so that the narrow table was just behind her and only a couple of feet of bright floor lay between herself and Peg. She pointed a scarlet fingernail.

“Look at yourself! Can you imagine him really wanting you? And look at me!” Her head went back, revealing a beautiful line from chin to throat. “Can you see what’s happened? I’m dangerous, so I have to go. But I’d like to make a bet with you right now. I’ll bet that Steve will very soon make an opportunity to go away - perhaps to Singapore ... yes, Singapo
re! I’ll stay there for a while and...”

Peg didn’t hear any more. She pressed her hands to her cheeks and closed her eyes; her head was knocking madly. Then suddenly the flow of words ended and Lynette swung about. Her hand went out and swept the vase and bouquet to the floor, she gave a brief explosive laugh and ran from the room.

Dully, her head as tight and throbbing as if a steel band were contracting around it, Peg stared at the scattered water, the bouquet right over in the
corner
... the fragments of the vase which had been one of her mother’s treasures. She must have stared for a long time, for that was how Netta Fellowes found her, at twenty minutes to eleven.

Gently, Netta led her to the divan and made her lie down. Then she ran downstairs to find Dr. Passfield. He took the staircase two at a time, gave Peg an injection and drew Netta into the dressing room.

“Got any idea why this happened?” he demanded. “I thought she was fine.”

“I really don’t know, Doctor,” said Netta worriedly. “She seemed all right when I came earlier - I even remarked on her calmness. I think she must have given the vase an unlucky knock. I’m sure she hadn’t fainted; she was just resting on the edge of the dressing table gazing at the mess.” She thought for a second or two. “The vase meant a great deal to her; she brought it from England and Steve brought it here when she was first admitted, so that she should have something familiar near her. Breaking it on her wedding day might have an odd effect.”

“It’s unsettling,” the doctor said. “She’s highly strung, but not that finely balanced. Well, the sooner she’s with Steve the happier I shall feel. Get her moving, Mrs
.
Fellowes, there’s a good soul. That was a sort of tranquilising shot I gave her, so she’ll be all right for the next couple of hours. It’s lucky we’re only having drinks and snacks afterwards. A reception would be too much for her.”

Quickly, Netta cleared up the mess. Then she behaved as if the broken vase had never happened. She watched Peg use cosmetics and comb her hair, put on the little cap, which had now acquired a small posy of ora
n
ge blossom, and slip her fingers into white gloves. She took the bouquet herself, and held Peg’s elbow at they descended the zigzag stairs to the side entrance, where Dick Fellowes, dressed in his best light suit, was waiting to seat them in his car. Watched by the doctor and his wife, who were ready to slip into their own car, they drove away.

Peg never remembered much about the next hour or two. There was Steve, immaculate in a light grey lounge suit with a gardenia in the lapel, and about a dozen witnesses. Standing together, speaking responses, the ring sliding down too easily over a thin finger, the pronouncement, and then Steve kissing her cheek and putting her into a chair at the desk. She had signed, so had others, and then they had moved into the next room, which was tastefully arranged for a small buffet reception. She knew she appeared thin and ill because people looked at her compassionately and spoke quietly. The moment the toast was over Steve had driven her away, to the house among the palms which, for perhaps a year, was to be her home.

Steve’s house, just eight years old, had been built for comfort and permanence. It was exceptionally long with a large roofspan which extended to cover a terrace which one crossed to enter the main door. The whole building was raised on concrete piles for coolness and was thickly thatched with big Malay reeds which had mellowed to a uniform tobacco brown. The central portion of the house was one large room which had a front wall of sliding glass doors, so that in windy or wet weather one could still enjoy the surprising vista. Surprising, because only Steve, of all the planters, had managed to build fairly close to a beach, and from the living room the outdoors was a picture comprising green lawn, two or three groups of tall leaning palms, and an expanse of dunes which sloped to a pale beach and the blue sea. Some way out was the ridge of white foam which marked the reef.

The weather was calm now, and Peg had been provided with a long cushioned lounger in the terrace. She could lie there and snooze, read, or just gaze into the blue distance. And when she felt energetic, she could get into a swim-suit and stroll down to the sea.

She was never alone for very long. Netta often came over for morning coffee, Mrs
.
McTeale would come every few days with one of the other women, and Michael occasionally walked up from his house, which was only about two hundred yards away but invisible. Steve left before Peg was up in the morning, but he always looked into her room to greet her; a smile and a light kiss on her cheek. He was back before one and did not leave again till two-thirty. His day officially finished at five, but sometimes he did not get in till six, when darkness fell. Some days he spent the whole afternoon at home, in his little office, from which he emerged at four for a cup of tea. They dined earlier than Steve was used to, at seven, and by nine-thirty Peg was in bed.

It was a strange, lulling sort of existence. To Peg, Steve was a familiar presence, yet somehow distant. He joked and teased a bit, brought her magazines from town and sometimes played cards with her; chess could wait, he told her, till she had been at least a month without the pressure kind of headache. Even though some of her pleasures seemed manufactured, there was never a noticeable hiatus, because even a short silence sent Steve to the record-player. It wasn’t till she had been at his house for an easy-flowing, soothing fortnight
that
Peg noticed how completely Steve had organised her existence so that she had little cause for brooding or self-questioning. Even then she didn’t think back over the immediate past until, one day just before lunch, Michael Foster came to bring in his routine report.

Michael, pleasant, fair-complexioned and always a little shy, did not automatically remind one of Lynette Foster, but there was a look he had at times, when he smiled, that did bring to mind the darker-skinned, handsome face of his sister. That day, after he had put his papers on Steve’s desk and come out again to the terrace, where Peg was sitting, she looked up and noticed it at once, that peculiar little smile he had in common with Lynette.

“Do you hear from your sister?” she asked involuntarily.

“I had word to say she’d reached Singapore. It may be months before she writes again.”

“Call Nosoap, will you, Michael? Then sit down and have a drink with me.” And when he had complied, and she had ordered drinks and ice
.

“She stayed rather longer on Motu than you thought she would, didn’t she?”

“Yes, I suppose so.” He looked slightly awkward. “With Lynette, you never know where she’ll go or what she’ll do. My father’s always been
a
nxious about her because her unconventional ways could easily cause a scandal, and in the service your family has to behave impeccably. There’s no real harm in Lynette, but she does slope off and you wonder what the dickens she’s up to.”

“Why did she stay here so long?”

“She liked it,” he said lamely, and appeared relieved when Nosoap brought out the tray and set it between them, on a rattan table. “Shall I pour?”

“Please. Lime and soda for me.” She accepted the glass, moved it gen
tl
y so that she could hear the cool clink of ice. “Michael, will you answer just one question truthfully - then we’ll talk about something else. Did Lynette have any reason to think Steve would marry her?”

Poor Michael had to set his glass down again, rather quickly. He whipped a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped it over the splashes on his shorts. But though he was pink as he replied, he was also very earnest. “Peg, you mustn’t ever think there was anything serious between Steve and Lynette. Steve knows our parents and I work for him, so it was natural he’d be friendly towards Lynette. That’s all it was. When she came here they hadn’t seen each other since Steve passed through Singapore when he went on leave; they didn’t correspond.”

“She was here a couple of months and your house isn’t far away. Didn’t Steve arrange that you should all dine here every day?”

“At first, yes, but that arrangement came to an end shortly after your ... accident. We’d come for dinner once a week, but that was all.”

All Michael knew about it. Lynette wouldn’t tell him of private meetings and outings. It wasn’t that it mattered such a lot; it was just something that Peg had felt she should clear up. Michael, of course, had answered as a loyal subordinate of Steve’s would naturally answer. She would have to leave it at that.

“Still play a lot of tennis?” she asked.

“A fair amount, at weekends.” He sounded almost lighthearted with relief. “I’ll bet you’ll be glad when you’re fit to play.”

“I’m fit enough now, Steve coddles me, and I must say it’s most pleasant to be pampere
d
. Give me a cigarette, Michael.”

She was leaning to his match when Steve came into the terrace; she sat back and looked up at
him
through wisps of smoke. He was tall and wide-shouldered in a khaki shirt and shorts, his skin had a dull coppery sheen and his hair looked coppery too, but darker. His eyes also appeared darker than they had been a few weeks ago Peg wondered why.

“Hi,” he said, in tones that were rather more businesslike than necessary, considering it was lunch-time. “Did you bring those reports, Michael?”

Michael had almost unconsciously got to his feet. “I put them on your desk, Steve. Peg asked me to have a drink, but I’ve just finished it. I’ll get going. Thanks, Peg. I’ll be at the far end of Number Three if you should want me this afternoon, Steve.”

He went off and Steve poured a short whisky on ice. He sat down and took out of his own cigarettes. “Been far this morning?” he asked.

“I walked to the beach, but I didn’t bathe. The tide was too far out.” She put her head on one side, regarding him. “A trifle brief with Michael, weren’t you? Has he been neglecting his job?”

“No, he’s doing well. Within a year he’ll have the whole of the new Number Three-section under his control.”

She probed. “You’ve found him here before. Why didn’t you like it today?”

He was not to be drawn. “He had to come - to bring the reports. Like your g
l
ass filled up?”