Date: 1961-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: cookie429; Extratorrents; Kat; Romance
Description: Karen was young and vulnerable and very much in love with her new husband, and it was a shattering blow when she found, only a few days after the wedding, that he had only married her to further his own career, as a Government official in the romantic South Sea Islands. What was she to do now? One thing was certain, she could never stop loving him.
Publisher: Mills & Boon

THE PRIMROSE BRIDE
by

Kathryn Blair

Karen was young and vulnerable and very much in love with her new husband, and it was a shattering blow when she found, only a few days after the wedding, that he had only married her to further his own career—as a Government official in the romantic South Sea Islands.

What was she to do now? One thing was certain—she could never stop loving him.

CHAPTER ONE

The floor of billowing white cloud was gone now, and Karen could see an expanse of pewter ocean and a long string of green islands which looked uninhabited. She didn’t want to ask again. “Are we nearly there?” The nearer they came to the Leaman Islands, the more shy she felt of Andrew’s amused glance. He made allowances for her excitement, her wonder and trepidation; but obviously he couldn’t for the life of him see why she should dither at the thought of making her home on Nemaka Island. To him, the Leamans or other islands very like them had been home for many years, and perhaps he couldn’t remember how he had felt on his first trip to the South Seas.

Not for a moment did Karen permit herself to question his calmness; she was only too thankful for it. And all, it was the bride who had qualms, wasn’t it? A groom such as Andrew took everything in his stride and knew that tomorrow was another day not so very different, fundamentally, from today.

She gave him a quick sideways look, without turning her head. Seated comfortably beside her with one long leg stretched into the aisle, he looked totally at ease as he read the newspaper he had bought at Hong Kong airport. His almost black hair was brushed back from a deep forehead, and his strongly marked brows were part of the slightly Romanesque profile. A thin, high-bridged nose, a firmly cut mouth, a well-formed chin, and a jawline that rather hardened his looks and added to the seasoned air of command.

“Andrew ... my husband,” she thought queerly, for the hundredth time. “We ... belong to each other.”

And yet, deep down, she knew that though Andrew loved her he would never entirely belong to any woman; he was his own man. And that was the miracle of it, really; her being here with him, approaching the home they were to share, and the future they would shape together. Andrew Eliot, the lordly young man she had worshipped when she was ten and he twenty-one, the charming, experienced man of thirty-two whom she had married the day before yesterday.

Was it only the day before yesterday? Yes, no more. After the ceremony they had lunched with her two aunts, received tearful kisses of farewell and driven to London Airport in a hired car. And since boarding the first plane they hadn’t been alone together, not even for a few minutes. They had winged through day and night, stopped about half a dozen times for refuelling, and changed planes at Hong Kong. As she looked back over the past forty-eight hours, it seemed to Karen that the period at Hong Kong had been by far the worst. She had rested in a small hotel lounge, been served a very good lunch and been surrounded by reading matter. Andrew had given orders to the hovering waiter that she was not to be disturbed, had kissed her forehead lightly and gone off to see an old friend of his who was stationed in Hong Kong. Far wiser for Karen to rest, he had said, and she hadn’t dared to suggest that movement was what she needed.

That was her trouble, she decided. Though she loved Andrew with every fibre of her being and was determined to make their marriage idyllic, she was still so shy of him that she accepted whatever he decreed. But all that would alter, of course, once she was established with him in his house. She had to get over the first day or two, that was all.

He leaned her way and said, “We’ll touch down in about twenty minutes. Feel all right?”

“A bit shaky,” she said, “but wonderful too. Getting near the end of our journey is exciting. Andrew, I do hope everyone...”

“Now stop worrying. They’ll all adore you, and I’ve come back early for the specific purpose of avoiding an encounter with the Governor for at least a week He’ll be touring the other islands and his wife always goes with him, so you’ll be able to feel quite settled before you meet them! The men are a good bunch and you’ll like their wives too, though I’m not saying there won’t be a spot of jealousy,” he ended with a smile. “You’re younger and prettier than any of them.”

“But ... but I don’t really want to be. If you’re their superior officer I’m not likely to be very popular, anyway.”

“My dear girl,” he said, patting her hand, “You’ll get by, whatever your position. I’ll be right there with you. I know things have been pretty hectic this last week or two, but you’re young and resilient. After a couple of days’ rest you’ll slide into place with no trouble at all. No one knows we’re arriving today, so you’ll have nothing to contend with except...” an almost imperceptible pause, “except a couple of servants and the house layout. And as I’ve said before, I shan’t be far away!”

She smiled gratefully, grasped the hand close to hers and felt the reassuring squeeze of his fingers. “I wouldn’t worry at all if I weren’t so terribly anxious to start off on the right track with everyone. You mustn’t mind if I ask you once again if there’s anything else I should know about your colleagues.”

“They’re just men in the Administration,” he said casually, “but there’s one thing I’d like you to remember. A fortnight ago, when you agreed to marry me, I cabled my closest friend in Nemaka that I was getting married at once. He’ll think we’ve been hitched at least ten days, and so will everyone else. We’ll let them go on thinking it. It’ll be easier for you that way.”

She felt color rise from her neck, looked down at her hands and then through the window at the intensely blue sky of early evening.

‘Yes, it will,” she nodded. “Very well, Andrew. Thank you.”

“You’ll be all right,” he repeated encouragingly. “Don’t be afraid of making blunders. They’ll be viewed quite tolerantly—you can be sure of that. Everyone loves a bride.”

She nodded again, but did not look at him. One thing she had learned very well about this new, mature Andrew was his dislike of gratitude, and she was aware that just then her sea-blue eyes were full of it; so she kept her chin high and stared out at the sky and the distant shape of an island.

And because the little exchange with him had stilled some of her uncertainties, she thought back to the day she had first seen him this year. It was just under two months ago. She had been wearing her smock and it was stained with clay and paints because she had spent the morning working with her aunts in their pottery. It was only about ten minutes’ walk from the workshop to the cottage, but halfway through those ten minutes her life had changed, suddenly and completely. A car pulled up on the old stone bridge, a dark head poked from it and a deep voice said smilingly, “By all that’s marvellous—the Karen child grown up! I was going to look in on your aunts. Come and get in I’ll take you home.”

She had stared, full of wonder and delight. Andrew Eliot ... back in Cornwall! Back for only a short while, he had told her carelessly. He’d been on long leave and had about two months still to go; had travelled a good deal and finally decided he ought to look up the old place before taking a trip to Scandinavia. After that he would make his way slowly back to the Leaman Islands, where he was now the Senior Executive Officer.

He had intended staying just one night in the district, but the one night had expanded into twenty. Karen’s aunts, militant with hope, had insisted that she leave her normal duties to them; Andrew’s time was so short that she must be with him whenever he asked her. Andrew, of course, didn’t ask; he appropriated, every day. He did it smoothly and masterfully, and Karen loved him the more hopelessly for it.

They drove down to the beaches, picnicked and bathed, went sailing and tramped over the moors. Karen had her first peep into a roadhouse, dressed up for the theatre and learned how to sit a horse. No one could have been a better guide and companion than Andrew Eliot. He was nonchalant, lazily amused by her sudden flowering, her intense recollections of her own childhood and his unwitting influence upon her adolescence. He had been the only son at Welhayes, a tall lean young man who had chosen the Colonial Service rather than rusticate on the family estate. And Karen had been a leggy child who occasionally went with her older cousins to spend a day at Welhayes, where she had gazed unselfconsciously at the arrogant creature who, even then, was training at university for his career abroad. Between those days and the present she had seen Andrew only once, when she was sixteen; he had come to Welhayes just after his father’s death to see his aunt and uncle into the lovely old house. The impressionable Karen thought, headily, that he looked as gaunt and strong as an eagle. He had given her a nod and a surprisingly gentle half-smile, and gone back to his islands.

That particular encounter had put her off the young men of the district, and a year later she had plunged wholeheartedly into the workshop which her two arty aunts had carried on for many years. Only Aunt Laura had been married, briefly, but both had eagerly taken Karen into their home when, at the age of five, she had been tragically robbed of both parents. They had loaded her with love and discipline, would have lavished other things upon her if they could have afforded it. Designing and making ornaments and tableware alongside the aunts and three employees had been good fun and seasonally exacting; Karen had loved it, while looking into the future, and dreaming.

When Andrew came again into her life it was a knight-in-armor experience for Karen. Within a week she was completely under the spell of his casual charm, his strong features, his background of continual progress in Colonial Administration. And apart from all that, he was Andrew, who had laid his careless fingers on her heart when she was ten and indelibly left an imprint. There could be no other man in the world.

Eventually he had flown to Sweden, and for a fortnight she had lived between despair and ecstatic hope; a mild sort of hope, really—that he would return to Cornwall to say goodbye, that he would promise to write from the South Seas. Beyond that she daren’t think at all.

Then came the evening when he arrived at the cottage, was bantering and sweet to the aunts but rather keen-eyed when he firmly took Karen’s elbow and led her out into the scented garden. He hadn’t asked her to marry him.

In effect, he’d said, “I’m taking you back with me to Nemaka. I’ll see the vicar tomorrow morning and arrange the wedding. No fuss—none of the white stuff and hordes of tearful friends. We’ll just get married and take a plane the same day. All right?”

Karen never afterwards remembered how she had felt or reacted. For days, life was a delirium in which the aunts were happier than they had ever been and Karen hardly knew or cared what was happening. Aunt Laura had suggested a primrose wedding.

“Pale yellow looks so lovely with your golden hair and greeny-blue eyes, dear, and Andrew says you wore yellow the first time he took you to Welhayes a few weeks ago, it’s his favorite color. Besides, you’re young and springlike, and if he really objects to white...”

Both Laura and Grace had masked their regrets very effectively. Karen was their one-and-only and they would have loved billowing white lace and bridesmaids and a spread in the church hall.

Now Karen was conscious of the unfamiliar weight of the gold band on her finger, conscious also that the real beginning was slightly ahead, when she and Andrew would set foot together on Nemaka, the chief of the Leaman Islands. Those heavenly weeks when he had stayed at Welhayes, taught her to ride and drive, led her among a few sophisticated friends in London, complimented her on her dancing and her taste for simplicity in dress, her keen ear for music and affection for the classics ... they were the dream now, and marriage the reality. He might seem self-sufficient, but in his consideration for her, his lazy good humor and his generosity, he was a dear. If he sometimes seemed a stranger it was because she knew so little about his work and the way he lived. And if she felt a little odd about things it was because ... well, why not face it? It was because they had been so surrounded that he hadn’t been able to ... to really kiss her, since the wedding. A honeymoon might be a mixed blessing, but at least it allowed one to become adjusted, without witnesses. It had been good of Andrew to arrange things so that his colleagues would believe the marriage a week or two old. He was the most kind and understanding man in the world.

“Fasten the belt,” he said now. “Here, let me do it for you. We’re right above the Nemaka coastline. In a minute you’ll see the airfield and the government buildings—they’re only a mile apart.” He smiled. “Thrilled?”

“Tremendously. Queasy too.”

“Poor sweet, but it won’t last. Mustn’t spoil a ten-thousand-mile trip at the last minute.” He leaned across her towards the window and nodded at a coconut-fringed beach. “My house is just behind that bay, among the trees. We’re actually nearer to the sea than any of the others. The harbor is round the corner from the bay—we get interisland boats two or three times a week, and a liner from the mainland calls every fifteen days. The Government has a six-seater plane for local travel, and if anything larger should be needed we charter it. Islands aren’t cut off these days, but so far the Leamans have stayed clear of tourists. You’ll soon learn about everything. We’re right down now. Be touching ground in a second.”

They did, with a faint bump. The plane slowed and came to rest; the engines faded and for a moment there was a strange hush among the passengers in the small plane. Then came sighs of relief and questions, men and women flexing their stiffened limbs. Only Andrew and Karen were leaving the plane for good; the others were officials and agents stationed on other islands.

The heat, as Karen stepped into it, was heavy and brilliant, but walking uncertainly at Andrew’s side across the grass to the small building she felt a cool breeze. By the time darkness fell, at about six, Andrew had told her, it was nearly always cool and slightly breezy. The evenings were exhilarating except in the humid season.

Dark-skinned officials in white greeted him with obsequious respect, bowed to the mem and looked startled. A government car was quickly brought to the exit of the building, their luggage stowed. They drove away, along a lane that had been cut through crowded coconut palms; the sky was a scorching blue band overhead and the only other people on the hard red road were cyclists who carried anything from a bunch of green bananas to a mountain of cooking pots. Within a few minutes the sea was visible on the right, the car made an abrupt left turn and there was the house, a long white dwelling thatched with palm and screened from its neighbor by a tangle of poinsettia and flame vine. Home, thought Karen, a strange leap of elation in her throat. Andrew’s home, and hers. This was where they would really learn to know each other.

He had the luggage unloaded, slipped his key into the lock and opened the door of the house. Then, easily, and with the teasing smile of a man who does the sentimental thing half against his will, he lifted Karen and set her down inside the long, dim living room.

“There you are, Mrs. Eliot,” he said. “It’s been regularly aired and dusted and it’s all yours—till we get moved to some other bunch of islands. You have good taste—you can do as you like with the place.”

It did need new curtains and a couple of well-placed low tables, and perhaps a few bright cushions on the dark brown divan, but just then Karen saw nothing through the blur of happiness. She turned to him, pink lips parted, her eyes brimming with all she was feeling.

“Andrew, we’re really here,” she said huskily. “It’s really happening!”

He took her by the arms, lightly. “Haven’t you believed it? I was hoping you had. When you’ve been here a couple of months you’ll know there’s nothing so real as this place ... not even England. Feel all right now?”

“I feel splendid.”

“You look it too.” He gripped her arms briefly, and let them go. “I’ll have to get after the servants. We’ll need food and the boiler going. If I shove your cases in the bedroom you can start unpacking. I’ll see that you get a cup of tea as soon as possible. Would you like to find the other rooms yourself? There aren’t many.”

She caught his sleeve. A coin of scarlet in each cheek, she said quickly, shyly, “This is the first time we’ve been alone. Do you realize that?”

He slipped an arm across her shoulders and kissed her lips. “I didn’t want to frighten you,” he said softly, “and pleasures are often the more acute for being deferred. I’ll be back.”

She followed him into the bedroom, smiled happily as he left her, and then wandered across to the window he had opened on to a dark little veranda. The veranda posts and the edge of the thatch framed a vivid little picture of wild orchids about the foot of a massive tree; a parakeet stirred the still beauty and was gone. Karen hummed happily and turned to her unpacking. She filled one wardrobe with the smart little frocks Andrew had insisted on buying for her, the high-heeled sandals, the light jackets. She surveyed the room, and decided it must have been the guest room. There were twin beds covered in pale green, a scarlet bedside lamp, white mgs and gleaming mahogany. She peeped into the room next door, and knew it had been Andrew’s. It was very like the larger room but there was only one bed, and a couple of photographs adorned the dressing chest. One of them showed Welhayes to advantage and the other was of a group of men and women in tropical kit. Andrew was one of those people; he stood there looking tall and handsome and uncaring—himself, in fact.

The bathroom was fairly new, but it had gone off a little. The white tiles had yellowed and a few were missing, the metal of the windows had rusted and the rubber flooring had cockled. The damp side of the house, apparently; the room would have to be repaired at intervals—it had probably gone off badly through the house being locked up.

She washed in rust-colored cold water, changed from the straw-yellow suit into a flowered frock and used a little make-up. Then, as suddenly as if a curtain were drawn, it was dark, and a lamp sprang alive in the veranda. There were voices speaking quietly, the whisper of bare feet, the opening and closing of doors. Karen braced herself to go into the living room.

A plump, ginger-haired man in white greeted her. “Well, this is the most stunning surprise. So you’re the bride! I’m very happy to meet you.” And he pumped her hand and beamed.

Andrew explained, with a tolerant expression, “This is Dr. Mears, Karen. Jake Mears and his wife are our nearest neighbors—right next door.”

“Good neighbors too,” stated the doctor, “even if Andrew does discourage us fairly often. But you’ll humanize him for us, I hope. No man should be as set on his career as he is, and there’s nothing like a pretty wife to take a man’s mind off his work. You are to be congratulated. Andrew.”

“Good-looking, isn’t she?” Andrew commented, as he gave her a tiny mocking wink that deliciously quickened her pulses. “Excellent judgment on my part.”

“Don’t pretend to be cold-blooded about it—not with me, anyway. I’m only too happy you’ve fallen in love with someone so appropriate in every way.”

The doctor no doubt meant well, but a moment’s silence followed this remark.

Then Andrew said, “Sorry I can’t offer you a drink, Jake, but my cabinet is bare till tomorrow. Bring your wife for cocktails tomorrow evening.”

“I’ll be glad to, but this evening you must have dinner with us. Your boys won’t get down to cooking right away, and we always have plenty. If you’re ready, you could come now, for a drink and a chat before we eat. Molly can hardly wait to meet Mrs. Eliot.”

To Karen’s surprise Andrew said, “We’d like that, Jake. I’m a bit sticky. Talk to Karen while I get into clean things.”

Karen felt a little tightened up as she watched him go. Then she realized that dining with the doctor was possibly the most sensible thing to do, and certainly it would be the expected procedure. It didn’t matter that she had hoped to open a couple of tins and somehow conjure a cosy meal for two; there would be plenty of time for that. It was just that ... well, she had had an awfully long wedding day—fifty-odd hours of it—and she wanted to get it over. Dining with friends on one’s wedding night must be unique; and it was an instance in which Karen did not want to be unique. She wanted to come to the end of the strain and uneasiness, the slight but inevitable feeling of aloneness.

Dr. Mears talked paternally. About England, television, books, the theatre, pottery and porcelain, and gardens. And somehow, Karen was able to converse as if she had known him a long time. Andrew came in, looking suave and very dark in a white dinner jacket which was fresh from the polythene container in which it had hung for several months. He had swiftly and completely assumed his Nemaka personality, and for a second Karen had the panicky conviction that he was no longer the Andrew she knew. But his smile and the slant of his head as he spoke went some way towards dispelling her doubts. He was still her beloved.

“Thanks for waiting,” he said. “Shall we go?”

It was no more than eighty yards from one house to the next, and Mrs. Mears met them as they entered her living room. She was about forty-five, had once been an enchanting nurse and was now maturely pleasant-looking with fading chestnut hair, brown eyes that twinkled and a firm chin.

“Well, how lovely this is!” she exclaimed. “Ever since Tony received Andrew’s cable I’ve been trying to imagine Andrew’s chosen woman. I knew you’d be slim and good to look at, but it was Tony who wanted to bet that you’d be fair and blue-eyed!”

“Who exactly is Tony?” asked Karen, to gloss her self-consciousness.

Andrew said casually, “Tony Horwell, Copra Inspector for the islands. We happened to start out here together.”

“But Tony hasn’t gone up in the world,” put in Mrs., Mears, “and no one could prevent Andrew from getting to the top.” She let out a long, contented, breath. “I couldn’t be happier for you, my dear. Congratulations, both of you. Do sit down and let’s drink to you!”

It was not an exacting evening. Mrs. Mears was placid, the doctor genial, and though Karen’s appetite was small she did manage to try the three or four courses which were served by a well-fed houseboy. The Mearses would be good neighbors, she thought; not pushing, but helpful if needed. Mrs. Mears seemed to sense Karen’s feeling of inadequacy; her talk was interspersed with reassuring comments.

They had coffee and more conversation. Mrs. Mears thought Karen might like to see the rest of the house, which was slightly different from Andrew’s, and the two women went on a tour of inspection. Finally, the doctor’s wife waved a hand towards her bedroom.

“Tidy up and cool off, if you want to. There’s ice-water in the vacuum jug on the dressing table. I always keep a dim light in here during the evening, but you can switch on the table lamp.”

“Thank you very much.”

Alone in the semi-darkness, Karen dabbed her hot brow with a hankie soaked in ice water, dried off and put on some lipstick. Her pulses were hammering a little, but perhaps the heat could be blamed for that. It could also have bees the heat which made her want to walk away into the darkness and lose herself.

It had been too much; her wedding, fifty hours in a plane and no sleep, and then this evening, making small talk with strangers while Andrew ate and drank and smoked as if he had been married for ten years. He was doing it for her sake, of course; they were supposed to have been married for about a fortnight. But now it was getting quite late...

Her thoughts halted. There were voices beyond the thick curtain; the french door must be open. Men’s voices, one the doctor’s and the other belonging to someone younger, someone she hadn’t met.

“It’s not all that urgent,” the younger man said, “I came along because I heard from my boy that Andrew is back with the bride.”

“They’re right here,” from the doctor. “Had dinner with us. The girl looks tired, and I don’t think she should be bothered with meeting any more new people tonight. But you won your bet, Tony. She’s fair, and her eyes are blue-green. Molly owes you a bottle of whisky.”

“I’ll collect it at the weekend. What is she like otherwise, this girl?”

“Charming. Well read, of good family, unostentatious, and young enough to learn quickly and thoroughly.”

“What did I tell you! The career-man down to the last detail.” There was wryness in the younger man’s tones. “I’ve always liked Andrew, but recently there have been times when I detested him, too. The Governor tells him there’ll be a vacant High Commissionership at Cunan in about a year and an eventual governorship into the bargain, and what happens? Andrew knows his own worth, and he also knows that a governor has to have a wife—of the right kind. So while he’s on leave he finds one—the ideal type for a man of his sort. Where is he now?”

“Inside, reading a report I gave him—I came out because I heard you on the path. My wife and Mrs. Eliot | are looking over the house. Are you coming in?’

“No, I’ll meet up with Andrew tomorrow.” A pause. “Do you think the girl has gone into it with her eyes open?”

The doctor sounded thoughtful. “Don t you think you’re rather dramatizing the thing, Tony? It seems that Andrew knew this girl when she was a child, and it’s more than possible that when he met her again he fell in love.”

“Oh, come, doc, don’t give me that. You know as well as I do that he’d have gone further with Camilla Marchant if she’d fitted in with his career. Camilla is just his type—fiery and yearning to be tamed—but she happens to be the daughter of a shipping agent who isn’t too scrupulous, and who certainly wouldn’t suit Andrew for a father-in-law.”

“I suppose you’re right in that.”

“I know I am. Just before Andrew went on leave the Governor had a long talk with him—practically ordered him to get married if he wanted to be backed for promotion by an official recommendation. So Andrew searched about the English countryside for someone who might be moulded and trained to look and act the part. She has to please the Governor’s wife, so he knew exactly what he was after; someone typically English and malleable. As usual, he had luck on his side—found someone he actually knew already. This girl he’s married may be as charming and well bred as you say, but she’s also either a fool or a social climber. A fool, if she thinks he married her for herself!”

“Keep your voice down, Tony.” There was another pause, during which Karen became aware of sweat coursing along her skin and knives stabbing at her head. Then the doctor added, “Just bear in mind that Andrew and his wife have known each other from childhood—her childhood, anyway—she’s not more than twenty-one or two. The fact that he sought her out means that he has some feeling for her. It doesn’t really matter if it’s not as strong as the feeling he had for Miss Marchant. In time, they will grow together as Andrew and that high-spirited creature could never have done; they’re both too strong-willed. Let me warn you, Tony. Take things as they are. Andrew’s marriage is his concern, and his wife’s. We both know him well enough to be sure he’ll be loyal to her and that from now on Camilla Marchant will cease to exist for him.”

“I don’t care for Camilla, but I’d have admired him more if he’d married her. To use another woman as a step towards a governorship ...”He broke off, and must have moved away, for his voice came only faintly as he said, ‘Tell Molly to keep the whisky; I’d have done anything to lose that bet. And if that girl who’s married Andrew is genuine, I hope I’ll have very little to do with her. Goodnight”

Karen’s eyes were closed, her hands clenched and sweating. A shining pallor sharpened her features and the small lamplight cast shadows over her eyelids and across her upper lip. She looked and felt as if she had received a mortal blow.

Everything was shatteringly clear now. Those daily jaunts with Andrew, the care with which he had made sure to see her in almost every type of setting, the driving and riding lessons, the dancing, the talks about music and literature. He knew her aunts had carefully supervised her educations, that they had done their best to keep her in the Welhayes circle, that they themselves were well bred, even if they did run the pottery workshop and argue with wholesalers. Karen’s background was the small Cornish town from which he himself had sprung; her companions were friends of his family and therefore she was socially almost his equal. Not quite—which was a help rather than otherwise; it strengthened his influence.

How very fortunate for him that the “Karen child” should fall in love with him. She would be so anxious to please him that training her would be no trouble at all; he didn’t care for gratitude, but it might easily be bearable if it took the form of obedience and graciousness, for his sake.

He hadn’t mentioned that there was an immediate chance of his promotion to high office. He had weighed her up and decided it might put her off ... as it would have. Karen didn’t want position and power; she wanted to love and be loved, to have children and watch them grow, to be the center of a happy home. Her needs were as simple as that, yet she had chosen to fall in love with a man who would never give her even the least of them; a man, moreover, who had spent what love was in him on some woman whom he had decided to give up rather than take the chance that as his wife she might jeopardize his future.

It couldn’t be true! Andrew was considerate and kind, he teased and bantered, gently commanded and took possession. He had assured Aunt Laura that he would care for Karen for ever, that they would come back to Welhayes for long leaves, that some day he and Karen would settle there. And yet ... hadn’t he always kept something in reserve? Some part of himself? He hadn’t asked her to marry him, hadn’t led up to a climax with caresses or even in talk. He had simply looked her over for three weeks, gone away to think things out and come back when his decision was made. Karen would do; it was easy to be kind and affectionate towards her because she loved him, she had the bare essentials and his own grooming of her would accomplish the rest.

And what now? she thought despairingly. She had to go home with him, start some sort of life which would never have meaning. And she wouldn’t be able to bear it; she knew that. She made herself remember that he hadn’t kissed her very often. Hardly at all during those first weeks, and then only as if he were teasing her or bidding a child au revoir. And during those last days before the wedding, he had mostly greeted her or said goodnight in front of the aunts. Just once he had taken her into the garden and held her in his arms; something had banished the gentle mockery that night and he had left a bruise on her arm and a pain in her lips, and she had gone to bed feeling frightened and ecstatic. But it had been the other woman he was kissing, or forgetting perhaps—it hadn’t been love for Karen that stirred him.

Oh, stop it! Tearing herself to shreds wasn’t going to do any good at all. But how was she to act? How did one deal with a man one loved so desperately without a chance of being loved in return? Perhaps there was a chance. If she went along quietly doing what he wished, falling into the pattern he visualized...

But no, that wouldn’t be living! She might not be strong and hot-tempered and forceful, but she did possess her quota of spirit and independence. She wasn’t going to sit back meekly and wait for him to discover that as a wife she did have her points. She would tell him what she had overheard, have it out with him. But, fatalistically, she knew he would laugh at her for listening to gossip, and set about erasing it from her mind; and possibly he would be right in doing so. She scarcely knew the doctor, and the younger man had been merely a voice. Men gossiped as well as women.

But ... but not those men. One of them, the doctor, had talked fairly and impartially; and the man Tony was Andrew’s friend; anything he might say against Andrew would come from a bitter disappointment, not from malice.

Karen squared her shoulders, touched her face with a clammy finger. As Mrs. Mears came into the room she turned so that her back, was to the light.

“Oh, you’re still in here,” the older woman said cheerfully. “Andrew was just saying that it’s time you went home. He thinks you must be tired.”

“It’s the first of many times. Come in and see me whenever you feel like it, and if you want me to put you wise about the other people here, I’ll be having coffee and biscuits at eleven tomorrow morning—come and join me. If Jake and I can help you in any way, don’t hesitate to ask. And do call me Molly.”

They were back in the glow of the living room, where both men stood close to the open door. Andrew turned, smiled and thanked Mrs. Mears. Karen repeated her thanks and preceded him into the night. They walked to the path which linked both houses, dutifully turned and waved before they were obscured by the riotous hedge.

“You’re over meeting your immediate neighbors,” Andrew remarked. “Decent couple, aren’t they?”

“Very nice,” was all she could manage.

“They took to you. The doc says you have the stamp of a good constitution.”

“I expect you found that a relief.”

He glanced at her quickly in the darkness. “Keyed up? There’s no need to be.”

What could she possibly answer to that? “Well, wasn’t it a relief?” she asked mechanically.

“Not particularly. It was obvious back in England that you were a healthy type.”

Yes, it must have been, or Andrew Eliot would not have wasted his leave on her. Hysteria rose to Karen’s throat; she had the peculiar feeling that she was going a little mad. And yet if, just then, he had slipped an arm about her and held her, tenderly, she would have shed every fear and all the unhappiness. But all he did was to nod down towards the faintly silvered sea and the silhouetted palms and say, a little guardedly, “Let’s go to the beach for a minute. You’re a bit edgy, and no wonder. You seemed to sleep a good deal on the plane, but perhaps it wasn’t restful sleep. You can relax now, anyway. We’re home.”

As they walked the sandy lane Karen said nothing. Her perceptions, sharpened by the sudden anguish, took in the sea-scents, the rustling of the palm fronds high overhead, the whiteness of the starlit beach, the soft warmth of the air. But something in her hated this lush green island, and a ball of grief grew to a suffocating size in her throat.

Andrew was saying, in soothing tones, “Things are quiet here at the moment, thank heaven, but when the Old Man is in residence there’s plenty of social life. You’ll like Sir Wallace, I think, and Lady Prichard isn’t difficult to get along with; she’s bound to want to take you under her wing. She and I are good friends.”

“It sounds as if you’re good friends with everyone.”

“Well, of course. I have to live with them.”

“And ... and those who aren’t in government service?”

He shrugged. “There’s a shipping agent, a bank manager, some traders; I see them occasionally. Jake was saying there’s a small gang of adventurers who’ve come to salvage a fifty-year-old wreck off the coast. That’s the second lot in the four years I’ve been on Nemaka.”

She drew in a dry lip. “They—the doctor and his wife—talked of your being very ambitious. That’s a side of you I don’t know at all.”

The pause before he replied seemed deliberate, and he spoke reasoningly. “What’s wrong with wanting to get to the top? I like Colonial Administration, I like native peoples and their customs, and responsibility brings out the best in any man.”

“Perhaps it brings out the worst too,” she said in low tones. “I’ve a horrible feeling that ... that we shouldn’t have married.”

There was a brief, shattering silence as they stood there, facing the sea. Then, his voice tight, Andrew said, “Don’t ever say anything like that again. I know I rushed you into marriage and you’ve had some trying days, but we’re here now, and we’re husband and wife. Nothing can alter that. For my part, I don’t want it altered—ever.”

She struggled within herself, said in choked tones, “I can’t talk about this tonight. I just can’t!”

“There’s nothing to discuss,” he replied coolly. “We grew fond of each other in England; I had to get back here, so we married rather more hastily than you could take. I don’t suppose there’s a bride in the world who hasn’t wondered, the moment she’s tied, whether she hasn’t made a ghastly mistake.” He turned, but did not touch her. “Let’s go back. And do try to realize that I’m your husband, not some horrible, forbidding stranger. The very last thing I want is to have you nervy and upset.”

They walked without speaking, reached the house and entered the lamplit living room. He poured a couple of drinks, and as he gave her one of them his grey eyes were speculative, though he smiled charmingly.

“Feel better?”

She made a movement with her head, but kept silent.

“Here’s to us,” he said. “Our life together.”

She sipped and put down her glass. Stiffly, she said, “I think I’ll go to bed.”

“Yes, do. Take the drink with you. The water will be hot now, if you want a bath.”

“I’ll wait till the morning.”

“All right. Karen...”

“Yes?” almost inaudibly.

“I’m not some frightful threat hanging over you. I intend to make you very happy.”

She nodded, and with a hand that shook she picked up the glass and went from the room. She put the glass on the bedside table, automatically dabbed up the spots of spilled liquid with a tissue and then walked straight into the bathroom. Soap and water, toothbrush; towel hung tidily before she slipped back into the bedroom. She felt cold and completely drained. Her empty suitcases, she noticed, had been taken away and only one of Andrew’s had been placed in the room. It was still strapped. The other must be next door, where he had changed.

She went to the door, leaned upon it for a moment with her eyes closed before her fingers found the key and turned it. Draggingly, she got undressed and put on a pair of her older pyjamas, slipped into bed and put out the light. She lay listening to the whispering of leaves, the singing of the cicadas. Faintly, she heard the shower. A pause, in which the outside noises seemed deafening. Then ... the turning of the door handle, just once. There followed a minute in which her heart ceased to function, while she waited for his reaction. The minute was ended by the decisive thud of the other bedroom door.

Karen turned on her side and stared at the slice of dark outdoors which showed between the curtains. Ten thousand miles from home. Two and a half days and ten thousand miles since she had stood beside Andrew in the little stone church and spoken what she had deemed the loveliest words in the world.

Both aunts had blinked mistily when they had seen her dressed for the ceremony. A filmy dress from Bond Street, a cap of pale yellow primroses on her soft hair, the white-and-gold prayer bode her mother had carried on her wedding day.

Aunt Laura, the practical one, had said, ““You may not be all white, but you do look a bride, dear. It’s the stars in your eyes.”

And Aunt Grace, the romantic spinster, had quavered, “Keep them there, Karen. You’re so luck to be loved by a man such as Andrew.”

And she, Karen, hadn’t suspected a thing. She had walked with old Mr. Marlow, the family solicitor who had given her away, taken her place tremulously beside Andrew and wished she had dared to seek the reassuring pressure of his hand. He had looked down at her, smiling possessively, and her cheeks had burned with love and pride. Incredibly, she was his chosen one. She would love him with every nerve and sinew for the rest of her life.

Silver horseshoes and rose petals. A few of them had drifted on to the carpeted aisle of the first plane and the stewardess had given her a warm smile and looked her admiration at Andrew. He had actually winked at Karen, conspiratorially. It was then, when others saw them as lovers newly wed, that Karen had touched blissful heights. Only gradually, as each stop brought them nearer to Nemaka, had she become aware of a faint premonition, and even then she had attributed her unease to the fact that she couldn’t be alone with him, couldn’t experience the comforting strength of his arms, the proprietorial kisses she longed for.

He had carried her over the threshold, but as though in fun; he hadn’t kissed her before releasing her, but there had been nothing unsatisfactory about the kiss he had given her a few minutes later. A heady omen, she had thought. But now...

How was she going to deal with this, how tackle such a man as Andrew? Impossible to put it to him, point blank, that he wasn’t in love with her, that he had pursued her with gentle ruthlessness because the Governor had advised him to make a sensible marriage during his leave. No man, least of all Andrew, would risk admitting to the girl he had married that he had selected her for her English looks, for her good middle class background, for her youthful good health and hidden potentialities. Those facts might exist, but a man whose ambitions knew no limits would somehow manage to veil them heavily. He did want a good, genuine marriage. He would always be the devoted husband, the generous, considerate and concerned protector; chivalry was part of his code of living, part of the make-up he had established for the role of diplomat and administrator.

Karen was exhausted, but her mind would not rest. What was the woman’s name—Camilla Marchant? It seemed she was here on Nemaka. perhaps waiting for him. Not that Andrew would have given her any hope. However drawn to the woman he might be, he would have known from the beginning whether she were acceptable by the Governor as a prospective wife for an up-and-coming Colonial official.

Karen’s brain knocked, her temples felt weighted with lead. Impossible to make any decisions tonight, but it was also impossible to sleep. Word for word, that conversation between the doctor and the man named Tony slipped through her mind. And following it came once more the picture of herself and the tall distinguished Andrew, emerging from the church in fitful sunshine. Andrew liked yellow, so that it had been a primrose wedding and she had done her utmost to look lovely for him, because she had thought he ... cared.

She turned her face into the pillow and tried to cry. But she was still awake and dry-eyed when dawn came; then, mercifully, she was able to doze.

CHAPTER TWO

Karen came awake swiftly, but rather late. The bedside clock said ten minutes past eight, the air was warm and enervating and between the half-drawn curtains she could see part of the giant tree trunk and a background of thick dark leaves. The sun could never shine directly into the room, but its filtered beams were out there, drawing more flowers from the hot damp earth near the tree bole. She felt sticky and tired and full of foreboding. She would have given anything to return to unconsciousness for several days.

She sat up and swung her legs from the bed, went to the window and gazed somewhat myopically at the lush clipped grass, the pale mauve an pink of the orchids. Almost abstractedly, she twisted the ring on her finger. Her first morning on Nemaka, the smell of the sea, the stirring of the trade wind, the quiet, insidious warmth of the climate. She was actually installed here, where she could never belong.

Quickly, because she did not want to think just yet, she slipped on a printed silk wrap and went to the door. Gently, she turned the key and the handle, opened the door a few inches. Absolutely quiet. She slipped across the passage and into the bathroom.

Twenty minutes later, dressed in a narrow white sun frock, she drew back her shoulders and walked to the living room. As she had expected, it was empty, but a single place was set at the table which stood close to the french window. She sat down, rested an elbow on the table and looked out at a sun-drenched green lawn, clipped tamarisk and glimpses of the road. A servant came beside her. He was smallish and bony, had a pale coffee-hued skin and straight black hair. His features had a Melanesian cast, his voice was thin and high-pitched.

“Memtuan, I am Anai. The tuan wishes that I greet you and ask what you would like for breakfast.”

“Good morning,” she said awkwardly. “Where is the ... the tuan?”

“There came a message from the Tuan Governor’s secretary and he went out. That is all I know.”

“Thank you. May I have some fruit juice? Nothing else.”

Anai looked seasoned, as if he had had many years of serving white people. Even so, the request for a breakfast of fruit juice mildly startled him. But he inclined his head and withdrew, brought a glass of chilled orange juice and set it before her. She picked it up and got to her feet.

“I’ll take this outside,” she said. “You may clear the table.”

The voicing of even so mild a command made her shiver. She walked into the veranda, stood in the deep shade of the thatch and looked across the garden at the view beyond; the inevitable coconut palms leaning their shining emerald fronds over a brilliant blue sea.

“Government Road,” Andrew had said back in England, “is just what you’d expect to find on a Pacific island governed by the British. When the houses were rebuilt about thirty years ago they were made more or less climate proof and given plenty of shade trees, but most of us can see the beach from some part of the garden. The road actually leads up a gentle hill to the Residency—that’s a double-storey mansion, of course, and there are good views from all the first floor balconies. You’ll see them some time.”

Her fingers tightened round the glass. During those last days in England she had been too utterly confused and ecstatic to ask many questions about Nemaka, but perhaps to calm her he had talked evenly and naturally of the geography and crops of the island, the mother-of-pearl fishing, the weaving and dyeing. He had said very little about his colleagues, though, and almost nothing about his own position among them.

Andrew. Her heart twisted and her brain shied away from thoughts of him. She felt as if she were one vast, hollow question. What shall I do? What can I do? Unanswerable at the moment, because the knowledge that his reasons for marrying had been purely selfish and worldly was so new. If she could be alone and quiet for a week while the agonizing truth sank into her consciousness ... But could that do any good? Could time and solitude alter the fact that he had married Karen Hurst in cold blood, knowing that she was only too willing to become the sort of wife he wanted? The details he hadn’t taken into account were her pride and intelligence. He had thought he could fool her and that she would be happy to be fooled; perhaps he had even imagined that being the ambitious Andrew Eliot’s wife would, in itself, be enough to keep her happy.

Bitterly, it came to her that if she had not overheard that conversation last night her marriage would now be a reality and perhaps she need never have known about the Governor’s instruction that Andrew must find a wife during his long leave; or about Camilla Marchant, whose father had displeased Sir Wallace. Andrew would have seen to it that she suspected nothing; he would have been tender and passionate and infinitely understanding. He would have made her feel she was the only woman in the world, and taken care to seem no more engrossed in his career than in love with his wife. Nonchalantly, he would have mastered her; and joyously, with her whole heart, she would have surrendered. But an exchange of words, heard through a billowing curtain, had changed everything.

Perhaps it was the orange juice that made her feel a little sick as she braced herself to speak to the second servant, who had appeared on the veranda. This one was almost white, with Chinese features. He was stubby but not fat, and as well as the regulation white cotton suit he wore a little round white cap on his closely cut black hair.

He bowed ceremoniously. “There are orders for the food today, memtuan?”

“Orders?” She managed a smile. “Oh, you’re the cook—an excellent one, I believe. What would you do if I weren’t here?”

“I have twenty menus. I would use one of them.”

“Well, do that, will you? I know very little about your foods. What is your name?”

“Min Gan. I am brother to the chief cook at the Residency.”

“Thank you, Min Gan. I’d like you to continue as if I were not here.”

Another bow. “It is a great honor to serve the mem of Tuan Eliot. The tuan has told me to prepare for a small party tonight, that I must consult with the mem.”

“I’m afraid I couldn’t help you very much. I’ll leave it to you, Min Gan.”

He went off silently on felt-soled sandals. Karen put her glass on the rattan table and walked into the brilliant heat of the garden. At present, all she could do was to keep clear of ties. The servants must act as if she were a guest. Typical of Andrew, though, that he should have impressed upon both of them that she was mistress here now. However she behaved, he would carry on as though she were nervous and touchy through changed circumstances and the climate. With kindness and forethought he would wear her down; that was what he believed.

She pushed a hand over her burning forehead, pressed back the shallow, honey-gold waves of hair. How could she possibly think these terrible things of Andrew, who had every intention of keeping his vow to love and cherish her till death! She must be out of her mind. But she hadn’t been out of her mind in Mrs. Mear’s bedroom last night; tense, maybe, because her wedding day had lasted too long, but not imbalanced in any way—not even after overhearing that exchange between the doctor and Tony Horwell. Not unbalanced; merely shattered.

Detachedly, as she walked, she saw masses of plants with their dark green leaves and huge waxen blossoms which were white, streaked with yellow. A torrid yellow ... not primrose. There was a magnolia which someone had planted with care a good many years ago; it bore blossoms only in the shade of its own branches. The small back garden was packed with papaya trees, bananas, Pacific figs and mangoes, with a coconut palm thrusting skywards here and there between them. No one tended the trees, it seemed, but there were a couple of footpaths where the servants trod in and out of the dense growth to pluck a few fruit for the table and themselves.

Karen turned back towards the front of the house and found a coconut at her feet, a huge thing with a smooth brown husk which was already being attacked by mammoth red ants. She shuddered and stepped quickly on to the path. This was a beautiful, deadly spot, no place at all for Karen Hurst. Strange how she kept thinking of herself as Karen Hurst.

She went up into the veranda, stopped precipitately as she saw the two men there. Andrew, and a pleasant looking, brown haired man who might be a year or so younger. She didn’t look at the man’s face, didn’t look at Andrew either, but she summoned a faint smile.

As though nothing in the world had marred his homecoming to Nemaka, Andrew said suavely, “Hallo, there. Come and meet Tony Horwell.” And to his companion: “This is Karen. You two are going to like each other.”

“Of course we are,” the other man said, and he held out a hand. “I’m glad to know you, Karen. I hope you and Andrew will be very happy.”

“I’d have liked to have you as best man, Tony,” Andrew said with a smile, “but Karen had to marry at home, so that her aunts could see that the knot was well and truly tied. By the way, Karen, I’ve just sent a cable to your aunt Laura. I said you’d be writing in a week or two, when you’ve settled.”

She cast him a swift glance which said, ‘You take care of everything, don’t you?” But aloud she spoke quietly and without emphasis. “Thank you, Andrew. Won’t you sit down, Mr. Horwell?”

“He’s Tony to everyone,” said Andrew. “Yes, do take a seat, Tony. Would you like coffee or a spot of gin in an iced fruit drink?”

“I won’t have anything, thanks.”

“A cigarette, then. Come on, the copra will still be there for inspection in half an hour’s time.”

“That’s good, coming from you,” said Tony, but as soon as Karen was seated, he did sink down into one of the rattan chairs. “You’re actually still on holiday for a few days, aren’t you? It’ll give you a chance to show your wife the island.”

“I hope so.” Andrew lifted a brow as Karen declined a cigarette and pushed the box along the table, towards the guest. “Bingham just called me up to the Residency. The mail that came in on our plane yesterday included orders for a general health check-up on the whole population and we have to get the island members of the council to give their views. It means a meeting of the Executive Council some time today.”

Tony lit up, blew smoke so that his face was veiled as he commented, “So you’ll be Acting Governor—but you don’t have to. If you hadn’t turned up early they’d have had to postpone the meeting. We’ve gone two years without a full medical check-up; a few days longer wouldn’t hurt. If I were you...” He broke off, smiled very slightly and added, “But I’m nothing like you. That’s why I’m still a Copra Inspector.” He spoke to Karen. “What do you think of Nemaka?”

“It’s very beautiful, and very hot—what I’ve seen of it. I’ve only been as far as the beach and next door.”

“Most of the women like it, but they clear out in hurricane weather. Except Mrs. Mears; you couldn’t prise her away from the doctor.”

Karen didn’t know the man well enough to sense his mood, but apparently Andrew was aware of something amiss in it He stood up indolently.

“You’re going to have that drink,” he said. “A long cool one.”

“I’ll get them,” said Karen at once.

“No, stay and talk to Tony. You still look a bit tired. Sure you feel all right?”

As if he’d already asked her once this morning, and was solicitously repeating the anxious query. Karen felt her jaw stiffen, but she replied steadily, “Quite all right. No gin for me, thank you.”

As he went into the house she leaned back. The man at her side was half facing her but was looking far beyond her at the white ridge of water which showed the reef. She could see a rather homely profile, a good brow and thick, darkish sandy hair. His eyes seemed to be hazel, but he kept them squinted as if against smoke or the glare of the sun.

Evenly, she said, “You’ve known Andrew a long time, haven’t you?”

“Nearly five years. We met in England and came out here together.”

“How did you become a Copra Inspector?”

“It was more or less thrust on me. I’d studied tropical plant diseases in England and wanted to work out here. The copra throughout the Leaman Islands was in a bad way through rats and other pests, and I got the job of making it healthy and keeping it that way.”

“Do you go to the other islands?”

“I used to, regularly and often. Now it’s not necessary more often than three times a year. They send their copra over here for shipment and I inspect it at the dock. My job is the easiest on the island.”

“But it’s not the least important. That’s what counts.”

He looked at the tip of his cigarette. ‘Thanks. You’re quite a diplomat Did Andrew tell you I’m sensitive on the subject?”

“No, I didn’t know you were. My opinions aren’t just an echo of Andrew’s.” She laughed quickly. “I was merely saying what I thought.”

“I believe you’ve known Andrew since you were a child?” he said.

“Yes, I have.”

“He didn’t tell me you and he were corresponding—he kept you up his sleeve like an ace of hearts.”

“We didn’t correspond,” she said, almost without expression. “I think you already know that.”

He turned his head quickly towards her, opened his mouth to speak, but fell back against his chair as Andrew brought the drinks. For perhaps a minute they were tasting, without comment,

Then Andrew said, conversationally, “I brought a couple of tomes for you, old chap; I’ll send them along as soon as they’re unpacked. At the Colonial Office I was assured they were the latest publications about bugs afflicting Fax East agriculture. They’ll come out here eventually, but they were first available only a month ago.”

“I know the books you mean,” Tony answered. “Thank you for remembering me.”

No doubt the man meant no more than he said, but Karen was becoming a little raw with accidental or intentional double meanings. She knew that Tony Horwell was an admirable type of man, that he was loyal and anything but self-seeking, but she felt it wouldn’t be long before she hated him. Or perhaps, she thought sinkingly, it wouldn’t be long before she would have to probe a little further into the man’s mind. It was a relief when he and Andrew stood up.

“Thanks for the drink,” Tony said. “I’ll have to get back to the grind. It’s good to know you’re here, Karen.” An odd way of phrasing whatever he wanted to convey, but she smiled at his averted face and said conventionally, “We shall be seeing you this evening, shan’t we?”

“Of course,” from Andrew. “Around seven, Tony. Cocktails and buffet supper. It’s a must, I’m afraid. Much easier for Karen to meet people here in a bunch and as quickly as possible. So long.”

The other man lifted a hand and answered, walked down the path to the road and out of sight. Karen sat very still; so still that she felt her pulses beating. Without looking up, she knew that Andrew still stood close, his hands in his pockets, his glance detachedly on the garden. A sharp pain tapped at the side of her throat, a sign that it wouldn’t be long before her nerves began to scream.

All right, she thought shakily; get it over. Just start it and I’ll go on from there!

The silence lengthened, and her heat turned to chill. Her eyes were half-closed, seeing only the stone floor of the veranda, the wanton sprays of flowers leaning over it, towards the house. If he’d only pull her up into his arms, tell her she was a goose, that he loved her, that he’d spank her for ever doubting it....

He spoke as lightly as if it were only two or three days since they had first met on the old stone bridge. “When the tide is low one day we’ll take a picnic out to the reef. There’s quite an amazing variety of fish and sea-anemones and the coral formations are fantastic and beautifully tinted.” Then his tone changed, but not much. “Not apprehensive about the small party tonight, are you?”

“No.”

“What do you think of Tony?”

“He seems pleasant.”

“He’s a bit like you, but being a man he’s had to harden up. Don’t start telling yourself that he’s unhappy. He’s not.”

“I’m afraid I haven’t that much interest in him.”

“Not yet. In time, everyone here is interested in everyone else.”

“Even you?” she heard herself asking, very coolly.

“Even I. What makes you think I’m not concerned about the personal lives and feelings of the people I work with? The fact that I’ve managed to hurt you in some way doesn’t affect my relationship with my colleagues.”

In that moment Karen knew, with lethal certainty, that she would never be able to handle a frank discussion with him. He was thirty-two, clever, shrewd and calculating. He had what he wanted, and he was convinced that he could keep it and turn it to his own account. She was no match for him and never would be. She made no answer.

He said softly, “You’re not a child, Karen, and I’m not a monster. We had some wonderful times together in England, and we’re going to do the same here. More than anything, I want your happiness. You’ve got to believe that.” He paused, giving her time to reply; when she remained silent, he added with a trace of sharp sarcasm, “If you’d stop thinking for a bit things might even out. You might even find yourself trusting me ... and realizing that we’re married.”

Mercifully, she was not called upon to answer that. Anai came round the house, with an old man hobbling beside him. They stopped in the sunshine, bowed their apologies several times.

“What is it?” Andrew asked the servant.

“This is an old man from the north coast, tuan. He says his grandson is sick from fish-bite. The assistant of the Tuan Doctor says the boy must be brought to the clinic, but the old man has no ox, no cart, and his home is in the hills near the sea. The boy is there.”

Andrew looked at the lined brown face. “Aren’t yon the man who used to serve Kim Lai, the old chief?”

The man gave a series of pleased nods. “I serve him till he die, tuan. It is kind of the tuan to remember me.”

“The tuan,” said Anai severely, “remembers everyone. Tell him what you want.”

“A cart,” quivered the old man simply. “Even if it is only a ricksha that I must pull myself. The doctor has said that later he will try to send the ambulance as far as the road is made, but I must bring the child to it. The boy is twelve years old and I am not strong enough to carry him. A cart, please, tuan.”

Andrew said, “Anai will give you some food and milk while I get a car and a couple of boys with a stretcher. The car will take you as far as the road goes, and then you must lead the boys to your hut. They will look after your grandson.”

The man clasped his hands together and backed away, his eyes wet with relief. “Thank you, tuan. The Tuan Doctor could not see me...”

“He’s a very busy man—there are many cases all over the island. I’ll arrange this myself. Go and have some food.”

Andrew turned back towards the house, and only then seemed to realize that Karen had listened to the request and his response. Almost offhandedly he said, “I’m going up to the offices to get this fixed up. You might send Anai next door with a note saying that the old man’s grandson is being dealt with and they needn’t worry about trying to send out the ambulance. When the car comes, see that the old man is made comfortable in it and give the driver a couple of blankets for the child. You’ll find a supply of government blankets in the small room next to the bathroom—they’re grey. I’ll be back about one.”

She nodded and he went into the living room, came out again rattling a case of car keys. He hesitated, looking at her, checked what he was about to say and moved off. A minute later he had backed a car from the garage on the far side of the house and had turned it towards the road.

With muddled feelings, Karen sat at the dining table and wrote the note for Mrs. Mears. She recalled being invited for coffee and biscuits at eleven, and was glad it was now eleven-thirty and that the message she had to send was businesslike. Even the good-natured Molly Mears would have been hard to bear just now. After she had given the note and instructions to Anai, she went into the small linen room for the blankets. Curiously, she examined the piles of new linen sheets and pillow cases, the polythene-wrapped cellular blankets, the plain white damask tablecloths and napkins. These were Andrew’s. About a week ago—only a week?—she had asked him whether house linen were obtainable on Nemaka.

“You can get a few things,” he’d told her, adding with a grin “I stocked up pretty thoroughly at the beginning of my leave—didn’t guess I was going to meet you! I went to a West End store and gave them an order to ship out for me. The stuff will probably be there before us. We can order anything more you may need by cable—it takes about two months to reach us.”

She’d thought, regretfully, that it would have been nice to choose her own linen. It had seemed quite important then. And yet now she didn’t think of it as hers. It was Andrew’s, for Andrew’s house.

The car arrived—a long estate wagon which easily accommodated the stretcher. She saw the old man seated inside, just behind the driver and his companion, and placed the folded blankets beside him. A first aid box and a basket of staple groceries stood near the stretcher. Andrew hadn’t forgotten a thing.

“I hope you’ll get it all through quickly,” she said, giving the old islander a warm smile. “You must let us know if you need anything more.”

“The mem is kind. I will not forget.”

The long vehicle moved away and Karen went back into the house. On the whole, even a little action had made her feel a shade more normal. If she could forget herself for a while, plunge into something that needed doing and make a good job of it, she might get a more objective slant on her own problem. But what could she do? In this country one didn’t do gardening, and the few dress lengths and embroidery materials she had brought with her from England would need a more tranquil mind. The only other soothing occupation she could think of was cake-making, and seeing that the kitchen was Min Gan’s province, that was out. Still, there was nothing to prevent her looking over his domain.

The kitchen was quite large, with a long window looking out over the tangled orchard. Min Gan stood at a scrubbed table peeling bamboo shoots for a salad, and though he bowed politely as she entered he went on with the task, deftly using a razor-edged knife. Nothing stylish or very modern in the room, but it was cleanly painted white except for a wide band of mid-blue round the kitchen range. The fridge was large and well stocked with wrapped chickens and dairy foods; the interior was as clinically white as that of the tiny fridge at Aunt Laura’s, but Karen remembered that this one ran on paraffin. The couple of generators on the island had all they could do to supply lighting for the houses and Residency.

In answer to her question, Min Gan said he had baked small cakes only an hour ago. He showed her a large square tin methodically packed with tiny macaroons and iced buns.

“I make everything but the large English fruit cake for which the tuan has sometimes asked,” he said. “That I have tried, but always it is wet in the middle and I am ashamed to show it.”

“It needs long cooking, Min Gan.”

“The mem will show me?”

Karen bent to look into a cupboard. “Perhaps,” she answered with reserve. Not by the cook or anyone else would she be persuaded to commit herself. “You have lots of new china here. It’s very smart.”

“But the mem has already seen it. The whole case of china was the gift of Tuan Horwell. He bring it himself from the mainland a week ago, and I washed it and put it away.”

“Oh, yes ... of course.”

Karen passed on to the cutlery drawer, made a casual comment and drifted from the room. Unaccustomed to meeting danger every time she made a remark, she felt imprisoned, and inevitably she took the only way of escape she knew. She went down the path, hesitated at the gateless entrance and looked left, up the road. Hardly any sign of life and only a tiny glimpse here and there of a portion of thatch. She could see an interminable tamarisk hedge with gaps in it, masses of trees and a moving white something which must be a houseboy sweeping up leaves. The end of the road was lost in the thick shade of the trees.

She turned and crossed the road by which they had come from the airfield, trod through the sandy turf and went down on to the salt-white beach. Nothing much doing there, either. An islander in a faded sarong was examining a wide length of fishing net and a child picked over the weed and driftwood left by the last tide. The sea looked calm and gentle, and about seventy yards out the reef jutted its pink and purple coral crags. A perfect lagoon; the houses had been sited near it because it was the most beautiful of the many lagoons on this side of the island. The bathing, Andrew said, was superb and safe—best in the evening because air and water were cooler.

Karen thought of the three swim suits she had chosen with much care; expensive and a beautiful fit. One was white, one pale blue patterned with rose-pink, and the other ... yellow. The color of sunshine, of candlelight, of daffodils and celandines and primroses ... A color she had loved, till now.

At the water’s edge she took off her shoes and waded a few yards. The sea was warm, the sun blinding, and quite soon she felt a headache starting behind her eyes. But was it the sunshine, or the battle which continued interminably inside her head, even without her volition? She didn’t know; but she decided it would be wiser to stay indoors during the hottest part of the day while she was on Nemaka. Because, of course, she wouldn’t be staying here for long; if everything must be uncertain, that was sure enough.

But when she had washed and run a comb through her hair, she sat in her room almost without thinking, except to reflect that it was strange how quickly one accepted grief. This time yesterday she had been a bride full of love and tremulous anticipation. Now she was disillusioned, much wiser and at least ten years older. And if she happened to be frightened, too, it couldn’t be helped. No woman in such a situation could be wholly cool and courageous. But she, Karen Hurst, would have a good try; keep her emotions well checked and meet Andrew with his own assurance and boldness. Few words, because they muddled matters and wouldn’t do any good; in that direction she was already beaten.

She heard the faint chime of the living-room clock. It was lunch-time, and the weakness was back in her knees. High-flown resolutions were no use at all. Nothing in her experience had prepared her to meet the situation. She was trapped. There was just one thing she must do. Somehow, very carefully and with more cleverness than she could muster at the moment, she must discover exactly how Andrew felt about her; it would be difficult to get inside that armor of proprietoriness and chivalry, but before long she would have to do it. Then she would know how to act.

The living-room, when she entered it, was dim and cool. With businesslike movements, Andrew seated her and took his place. He helped her to galantine and placed the salad bowl where she needed it. As he cut meat for himself he asked whether the old islander had got off all right in the station wagon.

“Yes, they came promptly and went off at once,” she replied. “I sent Mrs. Mears the message.”

“Good. You’ll find these little things crop up from time to time. I’ve just had an hour with the man who was my stand-in here, and he said he was relieved to see me back. He prefers a quiet existence in Hong Kong. There they have departments to handle every kind of emergency, but here we find ourselves dealing with flood, fire, accident, and so on, without any special set-up to put things right. We improvise, and generally get by. That boy should be in the hospital by about three this afternoon.”

His manner steadied her. “What is fish-bite?” she asked.

“It was probably a poisonous fish—there are a few on that coast. They don’t kill, but they do cause a nasty fever and if the victim doesn’t happen to be in good condition he can become very ill. That’s one of the reasons I don’t want you to go bathing alone. It’s a long time since we found a fish of that kind in the lagoon, but there’s just a faint chance of meeting one. An injection straight after the bite clears the thing up in a couple of hours.”

“The old man repeated his thanks. He was most grateful.”

“The islanders are a sound lot and very teachable. Some time you must look over the hospital and the couple of schools.” He smiled, as if they were the best of friends. “Good thing I taught you to drive; you can have a car and take Molly Mears along.”

“Is a companion necessary?”

“Only till you know your way about. By then you’ll be so well known that every islander will be your friend and willing to help or run a message if you get stuck anywhere.” With a direct but enigmatic glance he added, “The Mearses have been promoting your interest this morning. I had a spate of congratulations. Perhaps I ought prepare you for this evening—some of them will bring gifts.”

“I ... I hoped they wouldn’t.”

“They’ll naturally want to wish you a successful marriage.” He didn’t wait for this to sink in before calling the servant. “Anai, bring some fruit and the coffee. I’m in a hurry.”

Successful, he’d said; not happy. Play it cool, she told herself. “I saw Tony Horwell’s gift this morning. He must have taken lots of trouble to get all that beautiful matching china.”

“We’ll do as much for Tony one day. I did thank him for it.”

“It would have looked better if I’d thanked him, too.”

“I didn’t have a chance to tell you about it—only saw it myself at breakfast this morning.” His glance again collided deliberately with hers and would have held it if she hadn’t looked away. He added casually, “Tony’s not so chipper as he was when I left Nemaka a few months ago, and as a matter of fact I had quite a job to get him here this morning. As soon as I have time I’ll get him alone, for a talk.”

“Why are you in a hurry now? You once told me the offices are closed from one till three.”

“They are, but the Executive Council is meeting today, and I decided to have it early; otherwise if the business isn’t through they’ll call it off at five and resume tomorrow, and that wastes time.”

“But if you had it at three you could manage an hour with Tony first.”

He let a few seconds elapse before answering, “I’ll handle Tony in my own way, later on. Will you pour the coffee?”

After that all he said was, “Get a good rest this afternoon; things may become a bit hectic tonight and I want you to be fresh for it.” Then, in a lower voice, “And do something for me, will you, Karen? While we have guests, try to remember that I’m still the chap you said you loved, back in England.”

He was gone.

Karen lay down on her bed for a while, got up to drink the tea which Anai brought, and tried to read. The printed words swam together and it was a relief when it became dark in the bedroom and she had to think about taking a bath and dressing for the evening. One of her new evening dresses, she supposed. The blue, which made her eyes look green. It was a discreet cut and showed off her neck and shoulders. Was her pearl necklace rather too modest for Andrew’s wife? Feeling horribly depressed, she decided it was better to leave her neck bare.

Anai knocked at the door and came in. “Please, mem, Min Gan wish you to look at the food.”

The array which met her glance when she entered the kitchen was colorful and attractive. Min Gan seemed a little dazzled by her dress and looked away from her politely, but when she complimented him he smiled and bowed.

“It is for the mem. The tuan has told me that tonight is a kind of marriage feast, and I have tried to show my happiness in the things I have prepared. Some of them are made from things we use at Chinese and Malay feasts, and the dish in the center is known in Nemaka as the marriage lotus. You will see it is pastry in the shape of many lotus flowers which are filled with a mixture of chopped fruits and nuts—as many different kinds as one can find. There is always only one flower for each guest, and it is eaten at a signal from the new husband...”

Quickly, before he had finished, she turned to a dish of savories. “These look very appetizing; in fact, everything does. You’ve made a wonderful show, Min Gan. Thank you for all the trouble you’ve taken.”

She got out of the kitchen with her head held high and walked straight through to the living room. As well as the couple of electric table lamps, four paraffin lamps had been lit and placed in a row on the window ledge. Presumably she was expected to know where they should stand; or perhaps she was meant to make the decision and tell Anai where to put them. The dining table had been covered with a snowy damask cloth and loaded with glasses, plates, cutlery and napkins. The only flowers in the room were half a dozen lotus blossoms in a crystal vase. Karen hadn’t seen the lotus before, but she didn’t examine the pale, unearthly flowers; they sickened her a little.

In the veranda, she noticed, more rattan chairs had appeared. Rattan everywhere, even in this room. Well, it was light and no doubt easy to wash, and to replace when worn. And with the light bright colors of the rugs it did give an atmosphere of comfortable living in the tropics. There was only that brown divan to upset the balance, and she found she didn’t care, now, whether it remained a blot on the room or was turned into a gay focal point with a new cover and cushions.

For something to do, she placed one of the paraffin lamps on the end of the bookshelf, in a corner. A second she set in another corner on a small table. One could be left where it stood on the ledge, but the fourth ... it might go up there on the bracket which now held an oriental jar. She brought a chair to the wall, kicked off her shoes and stood on the seat, and reached down the jar.

“Taken a dislike to it?” asked Andrew’s voice just behind her.

She started violently and would have dropped the thing if he hadn’t grabbed it. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Too intent on what you were doing. Have you got designs on the jar?”

“I was going to put one of the lamps up there, out of the way.”

“All right, if that’s where you want it. I’ll bring it.”

She remained there, a little taut, took the lamp from him and placed it on the bracket. As she turned, he put his hands on her waist and lifted her down. Deliberately, she felt, he took his time about releasing her. She sat, quickly, and trod into her shoes.

“Is the lamp on the window ledge quite safe’?” she asked hurriedly.

“Yes, we shan’t draw the curtains.” He sounded a little strange. “You look very lovely, Karen. Blue is definitely one of your colors. Did you sleep this afternoon?”

“No, but I rested. How soon will people arrive?”

“Any time now. But before they do...” He took a small case from his pocket, snapped it open. “I meant to give you these yesterday, but one way and another,” with a pointed smile, “I didn’t get round to it. I bought them in London, but somehow they didn’t suit Cornwall, so I saved them.”

A pair of earrings scintillated from a bed of black velvet. Each was a platinum lover’s knot set with blue-white diamonds and drooping a single, pure pearl. Karen’s mouth went dry, her eyes felt hot and achey. But she gave him a bright, brittle smile.

“Thank you,” she said. “They’re beautiful.”

“Wear them now. Would you rather fasten them yourself?”

She nodded, and with unsteady fingers took the earrings, one at a time, and fixed them in position. She lifted her face so that he could see the result, but kept her glance lowered.

“I knew they’d suit you,” he said. “Come and look at yourself.”

She willed herself to cross the room and gaze into the bamboo-framed mirror. She saw wide, tension-dark eyes, soft hair, a faint flush across her cheeks but a queer pallor about her mouth, the sparkling earrings ... and the straight line of Andrew’s left shoulder in the white dinner jacket.

“They make you look a bit older, but that’s no fault,” he said. “You really like them?”

“Very much.”

“A wedding gift,” he said quietly, laying his hands on her shoulders.

She couldn’t turn towards him, couldn’t move at all. The hands burned her skin; if he’d taken her and turned her towards him, her reflexes would have done the rest. She needed him so much. He seemed to be gauging her reaction through his fingertips; they tightened. She felt him, strong, leashed, needing no more than an indrawn breath or a tremor from her. But she was frightened into an utter stillness.

Briefly, his breath rasped. He touched his lips, without tenderness, to the ear nearest him and let her go.

“Glad they suit you so well,” he said, and moved away. A minute later the guests began to arrive.

CHAPTER THREE

There were the Coppards, the doctor and his wife, the Pellings, the Vaughans, the McLennans, the Rawlings, several bachelors and then two more married couples who were late because they had to wait till children were asleep before they could get out. Congratulations flowed along with the drinks, and the married women offered their gifts—surprisingly good ones; luncheon mats, a bedside lamp, gramophone records, some pieces of Indian silver and even a set of Italian glasses.

There were eight women, all of them except Mrs. Mears not much over thirty. Only one of them, Rita Vaughan, the forestry officer’s wife, looked restless and dissatisfied. She was stick-thin, had a mane of copper colored hair and a petulant mouth.

It was she who drawled, after Karen had thanked her for the half-dozen gramophone records. “Welcome to the outpost, my dear. May you keep that petal-smooth skin for longer than I kept mine. Let me congratulate you on reaching the heights without touching the sides on the way.”

Karen gave her the automatic smile. “What does that mean?”

“It means,” said Tony Horwell, who happened to be near, “that Rita is in her best mood, and very happy for you. Come and have a cocktail with me, Rita.”

If Tony started being tactful and protective, thought Karen, there would be trouble in other directions. But there was no time to think about it; she had to speak with the assistant medical officer, the bachelor magistrate, the agricultural officer, forestry, education, welfare, the man who had acted for Andrew during his absence, and the Governor’s secretary. And right behind her all the time was Andrew, tall, urbane, self-assured, saying the right thing.

“Thanks, John. Yes, I’m the luckiest man in the world ... Good of you, Rawling ... Well, here she is, Bingham. Of course she’s beautiful. Yes, it was a bit sudden, but it had to be ... Oh, there you are, Austin. Meet my wife.”

During that evening Karen grew a shell which was to help her quite a lot in the immediate future. It was the first time in her life that she had been the most important individual in a group upon whom she was expected to make a pleasing impression, and perhaps it was fortunate that she felt a little detached from them all because it helped her to endure the inevitable glances and jokes without losing the discreet but friendly smile.

When Anai wheeled in the two loaded trolleys she helped him to serve while Andrew filled up the glasses. There was deafening talk, smothered music from the gramophone, and exclamations about Min Gan’s excellent cooking.

Warm air drifted through the french window bringing a tang of sea and violent growth, and stirring the smoke laden atmosphere. Half the guests had spilled into the veranda chairs, and some of them were dancing out there, though it was doubtful whether they heard enough of the music to acquire its rhythm. When more of them began dancing, the living room floor was cleared of rugs and the chairs moved close to the wall.

Andrew brought Karen an iced drink. “Take it easy now, there’s a good girl. You’ve done splendidly. We can’t both leave them, so I’ll get Tony to take you outside for a breather. Do you feel as exhilarating as you look?”

She gave him the prefabricated smile. “I’m fine, but I could do with some air. Don’t bother Tony. I’ll go out the back way for five minutes.”

He didn’t stop her, but she had no sooner emerged from the back door than Tony Horwell was there, setting a couple of chairs at the dark end of the veranda.

“Andrew sent me.” he said. “Just to keep you company. You don’t have to talk.”

She sank down and leaned back, “But I want to talk, or at least to listen to just one person instead of a babel.” She took a deep breath. “Can you smell the fruit in the orchard? Why are the trees allowed to grow into a jungle?”

“They produce, so no one bothers. My fruit trees are the same.” He paused, said in his quiet, ordinary tones, “I want to apologize for making that leading remark this morning—about you and Andrew corresponding before he went on leave. I guessed you hadn’t seen or heard anything of him for several years, and I certainly had no right to mention anything of the kind.”

“It didn’t matter.”

“It did, to me. I’ve never in my life hurt a woman, and I don’t intend to start now.”

“I wasn’t hurt.”

“You were shaken. I’ve been feeling badly about it all day.”

“There was no need. As a matter of fact,” she said with studied carelessness, “I thought perhaps you were a little hurt yourself, perhaps because Andrew had kept quiet about ... things.”

“No, it wasn’t that. Andrew has never been the confiding sort.” His head went farther back and he stared out at the massed trees. “Of all the people here tonight, none could possibly wish you more happiness in your marriage than I do. I’ve always had an immense respect and liking for Andrew, and I couldn’t wish for more than that he should have a thoroughly happy marriage.”

She let a few seconds elapse before asking, “Were you disappointed in me?”

“Of course not. You’re so charming and appropriate...” He broke off, but at once went on, “I never thought of Andrew taking on someone so young, but looking after you may be good for him. An older woman might be a wife and a partner, but you will probably develop a side of him that he’s always ignored.” He gestured deprecatingly. “Am I being too personal, and a bore?”

“Not at all. In fact, I think I shall very quickly understand how you view everything. Please don’t be offhand with Andrew because of me.”

“Offhand?” In the darkness he sounded startled. “That’s not the way I feel, at all.”

“But there’s something, isn’t there? You didn’t want to come to the house this morning, and I don’t suppose you want to be thanked for your wedding gift, either. You didn’t buy all that lovely china because you wanted us to have something from you that we’d use every day; it was only a matter of form. I’m not a fool, Tony,” she ended in a tight voice, “and neither am I a social climber.”

“Oh, grief!” he said, and was silent.

Karen touched her throat, as if to ease a pain there. “I heard you speaking to Dr. Mears last night—about Andrew and me. Don’t think I hold it against you; I hadn’t even met you then. I’m telling you now because it will help to clear the air.”

Almost inaudibly he said, “You haven’t spoken to Andrew about it—I can tell that. He’d have slayed me. I do hope you’ll say nothing. What in the world must you think of me!”

“On the whole,” she said calmly, “I think you’re quite normal. Andrew was advised to find a wife, and he found one. You naturally thought he’d picked someone who looked very English and whom he could train and mould.”

“You make me feel terrible.” He turned her way, urgently. “I got the wrong idea altogether. Andrew adores you—he couldn’t help himself. He’s proud of you—your prettiness and reserve, the poise you showed among the gang, even though you knew they’d have gossiped about the Senior Executive Officer’s new wife. Don’t judge him by something I said to the doc.”

A question hovered near the tip of her tongue, but she didn’t voice it. Instead she said, very calmly, “I simply wanted you to know that you got the wrong impression; I married Andrew because I love him. Whatever may happen here, nothing will alter that.” She stood up. “I’d better go back to the others now.”

He was on his feet. “Just a minute, Karen. Please believe that whatever I thought before I met you, I have nothing but admiration for you now. I don’t deserve it, but I’d like us to be friends.”

She smiled, and held out her hand. “We’re friends, Tony.”

He gripped her fingers and let them go. “If there’s anything I can do for you at any time—I’ll drop everything else. I shan’t feel quite right till I’ve crawled ten miles on my hands and knees for you.”

“I shan’t demand anything so lacerating,” she assured him. “Will you excuse me now?”

Just briefly, as she walked along the veranda to where it was light and noisy, she thought that it was a relief to be on good terms with Tony Horwell. She was glad he hadn’t remembered mentioning that other thing to the doctor; or maybe he had thought that if she had heard the name of the other woman she would have asked him about her.

The crowd were still dancing and drinking and talking in corners, but as the music ended Min Gan came in, bearing the oversized dish he must have kept back from the trolleys. In his spotless white suit and round cap, and smiling with his slanting Chinese eyes, he came straight to Andrew and bowed, before turning to bow towards Karen.

“Tuan,” he said, “it is my privilege to watch, please?”

Trust Andrew to carry it off suavely. “It sure is your privilege, Min Gan. I’ve never seen the marriage lotus so beautifully made and cooked. Come and look at them, Karen.”

She saw them again, the pastry flowers packed with the fruit and nut mixture; only now were they garnished with real lotus buds. She smiled at the cook, murmured something. Andrew had the glasses filled up, carefully took the central mock-lotus and gave it to Karen before taking one for himself.

“We bite at the same moment,” he said, holding her gaze steadily, “and the guests are not allowed their pick till we’ve eaten the whole flower. It means a long and happy life together. Ready?”

Where her own gaiety was drawn from Karen did not know. She ate, sipped some wine and laughed just as much as was expected of her. Min Gan received a flood of compliments and vanished, but the guests remained a single group, round Andrew and Karen.

“You know,” came a metallic drawl from the slightly tipsy Rita Vaughan, “there’s something awfully primitive about eating lotus flowers, even when they’re short-crust stuffed with mincemeat. The least I expected was that Andrew would take his woman by the hair and smother her with kisses, then and there.”

“Darling,” her husband whispered entreatingly.

But Andrew said, smilingly tolerantly, ‘You’re a bit out of date, Rita. That might have been daring back in nineteen hundred, but in these days rather more is left to the imagination.”

Vaughan’s wife flicked her fingers, nonchalantly. “Too much, and it makes life tedious. You’re such a levelheaded brute, Andrew, that I wonder you ever married at all. Wives are always a nuisance. Ask my husband.”

“Wives are very necessary,” stated Molly Mears comfortably and emphatically. “There isn’t a bachelor in Nemaka who wouldn’t be a great deal happier if he were married. A woman makes a home, relaxes a man and helps him in his career.”

“Oh, we all know that,” said Rita with a silly smile. “Don’t we, Andrew?” She turned to Karen. ‘You’ve got a whale of a man there. In about a year he’ll be a High Commissioner, and from there it’s only a step to his first governorship. He’s got you just at the right time, honey. A year in Nemaka being tutored by Lady Prichard, and you in the background all the time.”

“Is that the present trend of gossip?” asked Andrew mildly. “You seem to get to know the promotions well in advance.”

Rita nodded sagely. “This coconut telegraph, you know. Besides, Sir Wallace was quite outspoken after you’d gone on leave.” Again she swung round to address Karen. “We all knew Andrew would come back with a wife, but he’s such a dark horse that we weren’t aware he was holding you in the background all the time.”

“A pity,” Andrew said, as tolerantly as before. “We’ll have to reorganize the coconut radio.”

Rita’s husband was gripping anxiously at her elbow. “All right, I know,” she said, with a lift of her bony shoulders. “I only thought it might please Karen to know that though we all gave Andrew addresses of eligible young women, he chose the girl from back home in Cornwall. You’ve been married only a fortnight, haven’t you, Karen? He must have left looking you over till last.”

The final words were spoken so amiably that hardly anyone, just then, was aware of their import. And the fact that Rita sagged back against her husband, looking ill, was an additional veil upon the woman’s imprudence. Dr. Mears at once advised that Vaughan take his wife home and said that he himself was due to look in at the hospital before bed. Goodnights were said.

A youngish woman whispered in the soft darkness to Karen, “Pay no. attention to Rita. She hasn’t drunk much, but she can’t take even a little. If she remembers what she said this evening she’ll be sick with remorse.”

Most people walked up the road, but two couples drove. Tony Horwell was the last to leave, and he had scarcely reached the road before Karen was back in the living room, dousing the paraffin lamps. Andrew came in and closed the door. He pulled in the french doors and turned the key, remained with his back to them. He couldn’t have seen how her fingers shook as she turned down the second lamp, for he said easily,

“Well, that’s over. You managed splendidly.”

She looked up at him, white-faced. “You really think so? Had I enough dignity enough sense to keep quiet when things blew up? Would you say I’ve proved myself worthy of the extreme honor of being Mrs. Eliot?”

His jaw hardened slightly. “You’re spoiling for a quarrel of some sort; I’ve known that since last night. But I won’t row with you, Karen, though I’m quite ready to talk. One thing I refuse to discuss, though, is the drooling of a woman like Rita Vaughan. Both she and Clive know that she should never have come to a place like Nemaka. He’s getting a transfer to Hong Kong, but it’s come late, and I doubt if she’ll be able to rebuild their marriage. Rita’s come to a point where all she can do with a brain that used to be good is fool around with gossip.”

“Even gossip has to start somewhere! Do you deny that the Governor told you to find a wife?”

“This isn’t the way for us to talk to each other, Karen.”

“But did he?”

“He didn’t tell me,” he answered roughly. “We discussed certain possibilities in the future and agreed that marriage might be a necessity.”

“And no doubt Lady Prichard put in a diplomatic word about choosing someone with the right kind of education and looks! She sounds like a priggish Victorian horror, but that wouldn’t daunt you. You thought the sweet and tractable Karen would be too bemused by her own miraculous luck to care why she’d been toted round England and taught to take a drink and drive. I’m afraid I have to disappoint you, Andrew. I don’t want to be the wife of a High Commissioner, I don’t want to be above other women or to spend my life making an impression on the natives. You may be unbelievably good at your job, but you’re a poor judge of women. I’m not what you were after!”

His eyes glinted dangerously, but he still kept his tones even. “Rita’s muddled indiscretions aren’t really what’s worrying you, are they? They’re just something you can hurl at me because we both heard them. You’re using Rita as an outlet for something you’re afraid to mention. Will you come out with it or shall I?”

She shook a little, hating his shrewdness, his keen probing at the truth, the look of anger in him when surely it was she who had the right to be angry. What had she told herself—that it was useless to attempt matching her own wits against his? Why hadn’t she remembered that, and suppressed her feelings!

Head lowered, she said, “You won’t even discuss what Mrs. Vaughan implied. Why should we go further?”

“Because anything that concerns you and me is important. Rita isn’t.”

“Perhaps you’re just a wee bit too clever, Andrew.”

“I wonder. Maybe I’ll experiment, to find out.”

He took a pace towards her. She backed, placed both hands flat against the wall and looked at him with eyes gone dark and staring.

“Don’t ... touch me.”

His eyes blazed, but somehow he kept his furious tones under control. “We’re married, you and I, and I won’t let you forget it. We’ve sworn to love each other, and if that means rather more than you thought, you’ll have to change your ideas! Not at once, perhaps, but soon. I want nothing from you that you can’t give happily and without fear—don’t kid yourself that I’m different from other men, though. I’m flesh and blood, very much so.” Breathing rather heavily, he ended, with sarcasm, “Go to bed, child. And you needn’t lock your door tonight. We don’t have marauders in these parts!”

She swallowed on the harsh lump in her throat. Desperately, she wanted to tell him how she felt about the dreadful sense of let-down, the hurt within her, and the need. But he stood there, his hands fallen to his sides and clenched, his nostrils slightly dilated, his mouth sardonic while his eyes glittered. A man of dynamic passions and tremendous will; a man she had barely glimpsed in England.

Hopelessly she turned from him and made her way through to her bedroom. She felt as limp and distorted as if she had been through a wringer.

Subtly the atmosphere in the house changed from an oppressive electrical heat to an equally oppressive but less dangerous coolness. Without any verbal agreement the pattern of their behavior was temporarily set. Andrew had breakfast alone, they lunched and dined together, and spoke only when necessary or for the sake of politeness. A few times, during the following couple of days, Karen wondered at his fury the other night and his present constraint both were so unlike anything she had ever known about Andrew. Always she had found him forthright and companionable, keen to keep her smiling. There had been times when he had been lordly and debonair, when he had told her improbable stories just to make her throw back her head and laugh; they had done so much laughing together during those first three weeks, had found so many tiny bonds. They both liked asparagus and Beethoven, Dickens and hard-centred chocolates; both detested mushy films and liver, the smell of chrysanthemums and the taste of swimming-pool water. True, Andrew had laughed at her as well as with her, but it had been kind laughter, the sort that went with a squeeze of her shoulder or a pat on her; hair, or even a light kiss on her cheek.

And now it was all gone, bewilderingly and heartbreakingly. From a sweet friendly relationship that had been headily full of the promise of tremendous fulfilment, they had plunged into an enmity which made them worse than strangers. And it had come about because Andrew was not in love with her. He was fond of her, but he wasn’t in love with her. That was the stark truth she had to accept and somehow deal with. The friendship she had hugged and cherished, the tiny moments of intimacy, the shared fun, his capture of her aunts—he had arranged them all because he saw in Karen Hurst an embryo of the kind of wife he would need in a year or two. She didn’t have to wonder any longer whether it could possibly be true; in no time at all it had been confirmed from opposite sources. Unwittingly, she had become the wife of a charmingly merciless careerist; and to her utter desolation she was still in love with him. That was why she felt paralyzed, unable as yet to make a single move towards ending the mockery.

How could one end it, anyway? The merest zephyr of scandal at this stage might ruin Andrew’s future, and at best she would have to endure a few weeks of Nemaka before wilting in the climate or being hurriedly summoned to Cornwall for some reason. But perhaps the time would arrive when Andrew and his career would become less important than her own emotions and peace of mind. Was it possible to fall out of love?

The more she thought, during those two or three days, the more chaotic were Karen’s mental reactions. Mixed up and horribly sharpened, her emotions forced her to hear Andrew’s car long before he reached the drive, to smell his cigarette smoke as it wafted in from the veranda, to hasten past his room even when it was empty.

Though she took care never to look at the lean brown features, she knew his hands as if they were her own. They were strong, the fingers spatulate, the nails well-shaped; the hands of a man of action, though she knew instinctively, as well as from small isolated experiences, that they could linger and caress.

But man of action he was. The mooted drives and picnics, bathing and exploring were forgotten. He slipped back into his office, his substitute was ready to leave on the first boat that could take him, and the medical check-up ordered by the last mail was already in process of organization. In about five days’ time, when the Governor was due to return from his ceremonial tour of the islands, the administration machinery would be running as smoothly as if Andrew had never left Nemaka.

Karen stayed fairly close to the house. Mrs. Mears came for a chat, there was a note of apology from Rita Vaughan and Tony Horwell dropped in for sundowners one evening.

Then, one day, Andrew arrived for lunch in a small grey car. After they had eaten he said, “I’ve bought the bus outside from Coppard. He brought it here eighteen months ago and has hardly used it. You’ll find it handy for getting about. The government cars are too big for you—awkward to handle.”

“Do I need a car?”

“We can’t have you getting bored or tired. The car will help you to settle in.”

“Thank you,” she said politely.

“You can try it out right away—drive me up to the offices. I’d rather be with you when you first handle it.”

“Very well. Do you want to go now?”

“It might be a good idea—give us time for a run round to get you accustomed to the gears before you drive back home.”

Karen went straight outside and got into the driving seat of the car. One thing she was not self-conscious about was driving with Andrew as a passenger. He had complimented, her on the speed with which she had learned how to control a car, had said she would soon become a first-class driver. Here on Nemaka there could be none of the hazards she had encountered and overcome in England. In fact at this hour of the day the roads were free of cars and there were only a few bicycles to avoid.

She did not look about her as she drove past the government dwellings set back among the trees behind the tamarisk hedge, but at the end of the road she saw the stone pillars and wrought-iron gates which guarded the Residency, and involuntarily slowed almost to a stop. The police guard on duty saluted smartly, and Andrew returned the gesture.

“You can’t see much of the place from here, but it’s magnificently placed,” he commented. “The flag is always flying when the Governor’s at home.”

“Does he go away often?”

“Hardly ever. Last time I did the tour for him because he had lumbago. That was why he had to make it himself, this time, and it couldn’t wait, because there was an accumulation of business on Filfua and Malu. They’re the chief of the other islands and we have resident officers there.”

She accelerated slightly. “The gardens look lovely,” she said. “I’m almost totally ignorant about the plants.”

“You know the common poinsettia and hibiscus. There’s plumaria, frangipani and coral vine, and the many kinds of bignonias—the climbing thing with trumpets. Plenty of bougainvillea, too. At my first house here I had an immense avocado tree that produced fruit weighing nearly two pounds each. It was next to Tony’s house—young Austin lives there now.”

“Do we stay on this road? We seem to be climbing.”

“It’s as well to try a couple of hills, and you can stop where there’s room to turn. I’ll tell you a good spot before we reach it.”

He spoke without coolness but without warmth, indicated the place where she should brake and turn and commended the way she did so.

“Don’t go on for a moment,” he said. “There’s a good view of the house and our lagoon over here to the left. Want to get out and have a look?”

She stood with him in front of the car and gazed down over a thickly covered hillside at the very blue sea. The houses lining Government Road looked squat and tropical, the beach seemed to flow from a background of wild flowering climbers, and the ubiquitous and spectacular coconut palm was head and shoulders above its neighbors or leaning straight out from the beach itself. The tide was in, and the reef showed only fitfully in the vivid white line of foam which marked its position.

He turned his head and gestured at the low mountain behind them. “The coconut plantations hereabouts produce most of the island’s copra. Our next main crop is coffee. Can you see the peak there in the distance? That’s our landmark, Oponui.” He looked at his watch. “We go back the same way and keep left past the Residency.”

Which was her cue to get back into the car and set it moving. A few minutes later the guard outside the Residency repeated his salute, and they passed on, into a road which ran at right angles to Government Road. Here the buildings were not unlike the houses, except that they were bigger and clear of growth. The first was marked ‘Public Relations Dept.’, the second ‘Land and Mineral Resources’, the third ‘Co-operative Development Dept.’ Then came a larger building of two storeys; this had a flagstone path, semi-circular steps and a porticoed entrance with the words ‘Local Government and Islands Administration’. This was it, apparently.

Andrew said casually, “This might be a good time for you to meet my secretary and some of the juniors. We always train the most promising of the islanders to do the clerical work and learn all they can about the government, and the bunch we have now are really good and keen to work for their own people.” Karen didn’t move at once, and he said, “I’m not asking you to do this simply because it’s expected of you, but even if I were, there’d be nothing reprehensible about it. You do have a position to maintain.”

“Do I?” she said under her breath, and at once got out of the car.

He had the cool, arrogant smile as he led her into the dimness of the building. There was the usual obeisance from a guard, and then Andrew unlocked the first heavy door.

“This is the Governor’s office—he doesn’t use it much.” A turn of the key and on to the next door. “This is the Council Room—priggish, Victorian and a horror, as you might put it,” with smiling mockery, “but every inch a good solid Council Chamber. This next one is Bingham’s office—the Governor’s secretary you remember? Next to that is where I do my job unless I happen to be chasing up someone or paying an official call. Interested?”

A massive desk, two opulent green leather chairs, a vast bookcase packed with government and legal volumes, a table loaded with files that were in daily use.

“Most impressive,” she said.

“Is that all?”

“It’s ... like you.”

“Most impressive? Thanks,” with irony. Almost negligently he closed the door, shutting them in. “I’ve thought once or twice that this might be the one place where we could really talk—where you wouldn’t be afraid of the consequences of anything you might say. After all, there are twenty clerks in the rooms opposite and my junior is right next door.” And adding sarcasm to the irony: “That should be sufficient protection against your husband.”

She drew in her lip, to moisten it. “You really think that ... talking would help?”

“It’ll have to, some time soon. We can’t go on as we are for much longer. You must realize that.” She didn’t answer and he went on steadily, “You’re making everything terribly difficult, Karen. If it were true that all you need is my assurance that I married you because I love you, and not for a more worldly reason, you certainly have it. When I swore to love and cherish you, I meant just that.”

“I’ve never doubted it,” she answered jerkily. “All these years you’ve been keeping your emotions marshalled, ready for use. I quite believe that you’d be as efficient in marriage as you are in everything else.” She paused, and added in low tones, “Please, Andrew, I’d like to go now.”

He stood back, shoved his hands into his pockets and said grimly, ‘You’re a coward, Karen. I wouldn’t have believed it of you. For heaven’s sake face up to things. This damned situation just can’t last!”

“I know that, but there’s nothing I can do to alter it.”

“There’s everything you can do,” he said swiftly, “beginning with showing a little trust in me. Your lack of trust hurts more than anything that’s ever happened to me.” He drew a sharp breath. “How do you think it feels to come home to someone who won’t even look me in the eye? Don’t you ever think this out on your own, and realize what it’s doing to us? There’s no alternative for either of us—we’ve got to be happy together!”

Her lips felt cold and rigid but she spoke clearly. ‘That’s one thing even you can’t order, Andrew—happiness. I know what worries you. You’ve seen yourself introducing a radiant young wife to the Governor, because even he, for all his outmoded ideas, would prefer to believe in the existence of romance. Well, I shan’t scintillate, but I won’t let you down. I do realize that you took me on in good faith, believing that I understood what you expected of me...”

“Great heaven,” he said in a savage undertone. You don’t realize anything! You’ve about as much understanding as that desk. I’m not demanding the earth of you; I’m not even insisting on rights. Lord knows, I’m fully aware that we married before you were ready for it, and I’m willing to make every allowance for nerves and fears, however, groundless they may be. But I can’t live with subterfuge and evasion, with wariness and shrinking. I’m getting to the point where I’d even settle for the sort of relationship we had a few weeks ago; at least it had possibilities!”

Had his voice softened then she might have broken down and wept, and altered the end of that particular scene. But his tones, though muted in case they should be heard, were tight and forceful, and his narrowed eyes were bright and hard as steel. He was in no mood to be tender and comprehending, and in a way Karen was relieved.

Her hands clenched at her sides, she said defiantly, “All right, let’s go back to where we were during your early weeks in Cornwall. We’ll be just friendly, only this time I’ll know more about you. And when you come to the point of proposing I won’t be a poor bewitched idiot who’d believe anything; I’ll know exactly how I should answer!”

For almost a minute they stared at each other. His teeth were just visible between his lips, angry white teeth which slowly parted as his fury died and a faint mockery took its place.

“That’s not a bad idea, little one, not bad at all. We’ll try it out for just three days.”

“No, I ... I won’t have a time limit. You’re still thinking only of the Governor’s return.”

“Three days,” he repeated, “and I’m not thinking of the Old Man. Believe it or not, I’m concerned only with you and me. By the way,” in a studied drawl, “I hope you remember how we were during that week before I went to Sweden. You might think back, and stiffen that pretty upper lip to bear it.”

She averted her head and made a slight movement towards the door. He put his fingers on the handle and turned it, slipped his right arm across her shoulders and kissed her cheek.

“I’ll take you out to the car, my sweet,” he said with heavy satire. “You mustn’t mind if I don’t get all the inflections at first go. I’ve been through a bit since those days.”

There was no mention of her making the acquaintance of his secretary or anyone else. She walked uncertainly to the entrance and down the steps, paused while he opened the car door.

“So long, child. Be careful. See you later.”

Somehow she started the car, but his hand was still firmly closed on the edge of the window aperture. She looked up. “I’m going now.”

“There’s your side of the bargain, you know,” he reminded her with faint malice in his smile. “On occasions like this you’d say, a little breathlessly, “Goodbye, Andrew. It’s been wonderful!”

He must have known that such a declaration was more than he would ever be able to wrench from her, for he dropped his hand and stepped back, waved as she moved away, and at once returned to his office.

Karen drove almost without thinking, past several more government buildings, down a wide street where shops she did not see were beginning to get busy with the afternoon trade, and on through a long lane between tiny thatched houses; they stretched away on either side. The islanders sat on the roadside, knots of them gossiping or perhaps a couple sitting beside a heap of bananas or mangoes. The children ran about playing their games, but young and old gazed curiously at the young fair woman in blue and white who sped past in the small grey car.

Karen left the township behind and came to a halt on a coast track close to an expanse of crags. She was relieved to see something that kept thoughts at bay. A couple of tents had been pitched among the growth above the beach, and logs formed a bridge from the tents to the rocks at the edge of the waves. A few islanders were strengthening the bridge, some of them roping logs together at regular intervals while others poured cement over the joints. A crude pontoon, but it would probably last till the hurricane season. For fishing? she wondered, and thought it unlikely. The islanders could paddle out in their canoes and catch as many fish as they wanted.

Then she saw a man come from the nearest tent. He wore a singlet and shorts and a cloth knotted about his red hair. His skin was the color of polished bronze, but he was a European—not a bad-looking one at that. He saw the car and veered towards it, his smile white and welcoming—a swashbuckling smile.

It took Karen less than a minute to nod a brief greeting and turn the car. She had enough on her mind! But as the man’s figure receded in her driving mirror she saw him lift a hand and wave gaily. Quite a character, it seemed, and certainly a different breed from government officials.

She remembered, suddenly, that three men had been given permission to try salvaging a wreck which was thought to lie beneath the waters near the rocks. It was said that the Salamander had been carrying a quantity of Burmese rubies when she foundered many years ago, but neither a former salvage group nor the canny islanders had been able to find the ship. There were traces of other craft, for many had been lost in hurricane seas over the years, but the Salamander remained a mystery.

Thinking of wrecks reminded her of Cornwall, and resolutely, while she drove back through the township and slowed to wind among the blandly unconscious people who threaded backwards and forwards along the shopping thoroughfare, she reminded herself of the old towns and the wild coastline, of the moors and mists and gales. What wouldn’t she give to be back there, working at the pottery paintshop, spending weekends with young people who had been her school friends. Hard to credit that that had been Karen Hurst, three months ago. She felt so much older now. But she was still a girl with honey-blonde hair and greeny-blue eyes; it took time for loneliness and grief and anxiety to leave an imprint on one’s looks.

With a faint lift of the heart, she stopped the car and got out. The street of shops was as unspectacular as she had anticipated, but it was typically exotic. A fairly wide road which had little wheeled traffic, and each side of it a pavement that was like a long arcade with the road on one side and the peeling fronts of the shops on the other. Between the many general stores there were windows crammed with cheap cotton frocks and loud-colored shirts. There seemed to be numerous idle men; they gazed at the wares, lounged against the stone pillars of the arcade, strummed a guitar or lethargically beat at something which looked like a leather bowl and produced their own inimitable rhythm. Perhaps they were seasonal workers enjoying the sun they would later have to work under.

The few girls and women had pleasant smiling faces, slanting eyes and thick lips. Many of them wore frocks which in style were almost uniform—very plain and sleeveless. The difference between them lay in the colors and patterns printed on the materials; scarlet leaves, blue blossoms, green and yellow curves which made up a lovely formal pattern. It was the same printed stuff that they used for the pareu or sarong, and Karen thought how well it suited the climate. Brilliant, bold patterns in strong color.

As she became aware of the people’s interest she realized she was probably the only white woman abroad in Government Town; and that wouldn’t do, of course. The men of the Senior Executive Officer should be resting up for the cool of the evening.

Karen went back to the car, but as she left the shopping quarter she knew she couldn’t spend the rest of the afternoon in the bedroom. She had to do something, with someone else if possible. Yet she did not feel up to facing any of the other women. They were well married, those women, and inquisitive. If they caught her at a moment when the smile slipped she and Andrew would be this evening’s topic of conversation. For herself, she did not care a great deal, but for Andrew’s reputation she not only cared but was responsible. She didn’t want to have to be put on guard, anyway; she simply wanted action.

The sort of action was decided for her as she carefully ran the car into the garage; for Min Gan was there, bowing as she passed and waiting for her to emerge.

“The mem will excuse, please,” he said in his high, sing-song voice, “but I have noticed the mem does not sleep after lunch. Please, I would very much like to make the big fruit cake, if the mem would show me.”

Karen smiled with relief. “I’ll be glad to show you,” she said. “Let’s go to the kitchen.”

It took half an hour to find and measure ingredients, decide on substitutes for those the cook could not produce and get the oven of the range at the correct heat. The mixture was spooned into a paper-lined loaf-tin and placed low down in the center of the oven. Min Gan looked anxious, but Karen assured him that so long as the heat did not fade too suddenly the cake would be a success.

“The mem has cooked such cakes in England?” he asked.

“Many times. Our vicar used to love fruit cake.”

“Vicar? What is that?”

“Priest, minister. You know?”

“Oh, yes. There is one at the English church.”

Karen decided to have a cup of tea. As she looked for a small teapot she observed, ‘You and Anai speak very good English. Where did you learn it?”

He looked mystified. “On Nemaka we speak only English. The mem did not know?”

“I knew your schools taught in English, but I thought you might have a language of your own, as well.”

“We keep some of the old Melanesian words, and those who do not go to school do not speak well, but gradually we improve.” Proudly, he added, “On Nemaka we have two primary schools and a small upper school. The tuan will have told the mem about the sports dub where we play tennis and football. He is the patron.”

“Really?” Karen turned away and looked for a tea caddy. “Why is he the patron?”

“The tuan started the club and when our boys had made the grass he bought our equipment and helped to coach the players. Last year we sent two tennis players to a tournament in Hong Kong.”

“That’s marvellous. Where do you keep the tea?”

Min Gan’s square little face looked shocked. “I will bring the tea to the bedroom, please.” He turned, down his hands as if to shoo her from the kitchen. “The mem will tell me when it is time to look at our cake?”

“Don’t open the oven for an hour. I think it will take about an hour and a half, but you must test it with a ... do you have a steel skewer?”

He took an eighteen-inch stiletto from a drawer. “This?”

“Good heavens, what do you use that for?”

“The tuan will have told the mem that sometimes he gives a party at the beach. We make a fire there and roast a small pig. The pig is stuffed with vegetables and spices, and then we need the big skewer!”

“Well, use it kindly on the cake, won’t you? Dead center. When it comes out quite clean the cake is cooked.” She walked through to the bedroom wondering how much more there was that “the tuan will have told the mem” ... but hadn’t. She stood near the window and suddenly noticed that she was making a habit of twisting the ring on her finger. She let herself think about the scene in the office, the change in Andrew when she had suggested, quite wildly and without forethought, that they should go back to the atmosphere of those friendly days in Cornwall. If he hadn’t been angry just then she was sure he would have found a delighted amusement in her naivety. As it was, he seemed determined to take her suggestion seriously. Well, it couldn’t make matters much worse.

She had some tea, washed and changed into a pink glazed cotton. She looked at the cake, told Min Gan it needed another ten minutes and should cool thoroughly before being put away in a tin. Then, as she went along the passage towards the living room, she heard a car outside.

Her heart leapt. Had he come back early, for her sake? Would he continue in the vein in which they had parted, bait her a little and tease her, find joy in bringing a flush to her cheek? Could they possibly recapture that heavenly friendliness tempered by her own shyness and reserve?

She entered the living room a little blindly, stared without focusing too well at the young woman who stood in the open doorway. A quite beautiful young woman of about twenty-five. Creamy complexion, smooth features, a cloud of curly black hair, thickly fringed dark eyes and a full scarlet mouth. She wore an off-white pleated skirt and a sapphire blue blouse with a fly-away collar, and a heavy silver bracelet clasped her slim wrist. She had the sultry look of a plantation belle, but her voice wasn’t thick and syrupy; it was the normal voice of an educated person.

“I’m Camilla Marchant,” she said. “May I come in?”

CHAPTER FOUR

Karen had never tried to visualize the woman whose name had been linked with Andrew’s. Rather, she had striven to keep her only as a name she might never hear again. True, it had occurred to her once or twice that Camilla Marchant lived here on Nemaka, that her father had his business here and therefore it was unlikely she would move away. But Karen had also been convinced that Andrew’s marriage would prove a barrier which no woman who knew him would try to surmount.

Unprepared, she fell back on her usual reserve. “Yes, do come in. I’m Karen Eliot.”

The dark girl took a pace or two into the room, hesitated, and sat in the chair Karen indicated. Karen remained standing, and from this angle she thought the mouth looked self-willed, the lashes a trifle overdone. But there was no doubting that she was the loveliest white woman on Nemaka.

“You’ll be wondering why I’ve called,” she said. “I knew Andrew hadn’t quite finished his holiday and I thought he might be free. He ... he helped me once or twice, and now something has turned up that ... that I think he’d like to hear about.”

“He should be home within half an hour,” said Karen. “May I get you something to drink?”

“No, thank you. I’ll just wait for him, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.” But Karen was rasped by the other’s self-assurance; the hesitant tones were obviously assumed. “Your father is the shipping agent here, isn’t he?” she queried politely.

A dark glance flickered upwards. “How did you know? I’m sure Andrew wouldn’t have told you about us.” Mercifully, Karen remembered seeing the name painted on the side of a building during her drive; she mentioned the fact. “Do you live here permanently?” she asked.

“It’s where I was born, but I hope to live somewhere that’s a little more sophisticated some time.” She leaned back, looked up at Karen and said musingly, “I imagined he’d marry someone like you; it had to be someone fair and restrained and easy to command. I’m not being rude, and I’m not echoing all those old witches who gossip over the bridge table. It’s simply that he had to marry someone as different from me as he could possibly find. That’s not conceit. It’s true.”

Fleetingly Karen reflected that had her marriage to Andrew been as idyllic as she had hoped, this conversation might have been comical. As things were, though, it had all the elements of renewed heartbreak. Except that in a way she wasn’t so unprepared as she had felt at first. It was lucky, really, that she knew about this woman.

She smiled coolly, nipped a fading blossom from the posy Anai had placed on the coffee table. Rallyingly, she said, “Are you telling me you’ve had an affair with Andrew? He’s thirty-two; I wouldn’t put it past him to have had several affairs before he married me.”

Camilla’s head rose, her chin took an aggressive slant, but her words came evenly, almost sweetly. “I know your type. I went to a finishing school with them in England for two years; they made me feel I could set light to the building for the fun of seeing them scream their heads off. Nothing else would have got a peep out of them.” She paused, and then asked abruptly, “Have you a cigarette?”

Karen took a new flat fifty from a drawer, opened it and placed it on the low table, close to the table lighter. “Help yourself.”

“I suppose you don’t smoke!”

“Only after a swim, or with coffee at night But go ahead. Andrew shouldn’t be long now.”

Her effort at seeming absolutely cool while lead was forming round her heart went unrewarded. Camilla puffed furiously for a second or two, crossed her long slender legs and sat back as if she were ensconced for good.

“You don’t fool me, you know. And I don’t envy you, either. Andrew could no more love a girl like you than I could love any other man. Under that nonchalance of his he’s warm-blooded and passionate, and he needs a woman with plenty of fire and vitality. You’re too much of a cold fish ever to find that out for yourself.”

Quiveringly aware that she had stood enough, Karen was nevertheless instinctively careful. “Doesn’t your behavior strike you as a little ... unorthodox? We don’t know each other, and there’s no reason why we should become acquainted now. I’ll leave you to wait alone.”

But before she could move the other had leaned forward and spoken a word Karen had heard before that afternoon; it held her there, tense and listening.

“It’s only a coward who runs away from the truth, but then a girl who marries for cash and glory is bound to be timorous underneath. Let me tell you what happened some months ago.” She flicked ash, not caring where it fell. “I’d known Andrew casually ever since he landed on Nemaka, but until I got my father to invite him down for dinner on my twenty-fourth birthday I was never alone with him. Once we were really acquainted we got along splendidly, and I was even invited up here to a couple of parties. Then—it would be about eight months ago—my father was suddenly called to the Government Offices. He does a lot of shipping for the Government, and they’d found discrepancies in the accounts. If it hadn’t been for Andrew there would have been an ugly court case. That was avoided, but ... after that I wasn’t invited up here any more.”

“None of it was your fault,” Karen felt bound to say, wearily.

The other’s mouth drew in, with sarcasm. “How large-hearted of you to say that. But then in your position you have to show magnanimity to the populace, don’t you?” She stabbed out her scarcely smoked cigarette. “It ruined everything. In time, they would have accepted me here—yes, even the Old Girl herself would have come round, for Andrew’s sake. But that incident of the cooked-up bill was like a guillotine. I was my father’s daughter, and it was remembered that my mother was a nobody. I didn’t fit in—never would.”

“And ... what about Andrew?”

“He was kind, but distant. If we asked him to dinner he came, but everything else was finished. And yet I knew inside me ... quite positively ... that he was really in love with me.”

Karen sat down, rather suddenly. “Did you come here to ... to make sure that I should know all this? Or did you come to haunt Andrew because even if he loved you once, he ... he can’t love you now? Perhaps you find that knowledge painful, and want revenge? You pride yourself on being fit to marry him, but by your own words you prove yourself unfit to marry anyone!”

Camilla’s sullen eyes blazed. “That’s a foul thing to say! Your being married to Andrew doesn’t alter facts. And don’t run away with the idea that my father was guilty. He’s too smart a business man to jeopardize the government account. Andrew knew that or he wouldn’t have done so much for him at the time. He cooled off because he had to, through pressure from the Residency.”

“Well, it’s all in the past, isn’t it? If you were really well intentioned you’d have written to Andrew, not come to his house like this.”

Camilla picked up the lighter, dropped it back on to the table with a thud. “I’ve told you I don’t envy you and it’s true. All you’re getting is a position and a pale devotion, and you can keep them both. I wanted the full-blooded man, and that’s why I’m jealous. I still want him.”

Steadily Karen regarded her. “You have a nerve to speak to me like that. You’d better go.”

And then Andrew’s car pulled up outside. Karen got quickly to her feet and moved so that she stood in shadow. Camilla Marchant’s posture did not change, but avidly, sparklingly, her glance sought his as he entered the room.

He stopped at once, accomplished a swift weighing-up of the situation and said cordially, “Why, hallo, Camilla. Haven’t seen either you or your father since I got back. How are you?” His head turned, he saw Karen and added,

“I meant to be early, but there was a lot of stuff to sign at the last minute. Sit down, and let’s all have a drink. You seem to have introduced yourselves.”

“No drink for me,” said Karen stiffly. “I think Miss Marchant has some business to discuss with you.”

“None that you can’t hear,” he said. “Come on, my pet, sit down.”

He was being both careful and masterful; Karen knew that. However he felt about Camilla Marchant he wasn’t going to be left alone with her. Everything absolutely straight and man-of-honor. He’d chosen his path and not even the only woman who had ever really shaken him was going to divert him from it. Karen felt, bleakly, that things might have been more bearable if he were at least human enough to be a little sensitive about the woman.

“I don’t want a drink either, Andrew,” said Camilla, with a pleading smile. “I came because I thought you’d be about the house for a few days, as you’re so newly married, but perhaps I should have written. Congratulations, anyway.”

“Thanks.” He remained standing, his hands in his pockets and his expression wholly pleasant. “That new car outside is yours, I take it?”

“My father gave it to me a few weeks ago. He’s been feeling benevolent because while you were away he managed to locate the clerk who falsified those bills.”

“The deuce he did! I’m glad to hear that. Can we charge the clerk?”

Camilla laced her fingers, looked up at him trustingly. “That’s for you to decide, Andrew. I was just telling your wife how kind you were when my father had that trouble with the Governor. If it hadn’t been for you he might have had to leave Nemaka and start all over again somewhere else. That’s why I came to you about this. My father says the matter is half forgotten and no good would come of reopening it, but ... well, he’s the only family I’ve got, and I did feel it so much for him—the trouble with the Governor.”

Andrew laughed. “I don’t think your father felt it much. Ex-colonels are pretty tough. But if there are grounds for a charge we can’t let the clerk get away with it. Where is the man now?”

“On Filfua. I ... I wondered if, as soon as the Governor is back, you might spare the time to go over and see about it?”

At the same time as Camilla would choose to visit Filfua? Karen watched Andrew, and wondered, despondently.

He appeared to take the suggestion at its face value. “I might send someone even sooner than that. I’ll be in touch with your father tomorrow morning. Tell him I’m very glad to hear that he has concrete proof at last. He didn’t deserve that sticky business, and I know it hurt you a good deal.”

She nodded, and with her head bowed said softly, “It seemed to blight everything. For years I’d been lonely, and then suddenly everything livened up. There were parties, and people were as nice to me as if my father were a government official...”

“Don’t say that,” said Andrew sharply. “We’re no better than the rest. Your father came of a very fine family—as good as anyone’s here. I’m quite certain that from the age of eighteen onwards you could have married a government bachelor any time you liked.”

“I didn’t even think about it ... then. And now it seems a little late, doesn’t it?” She gave him a melting look.

“You did believe in my father, didn’t you? Or did you do what you did for me?”

“I did it for you both. You know that.”

“Then ... now you know ...” She broke off. “I find this most difficult to say in front of Mrs. Eliot. She has so much that I’ve never even dreamed of possessing that I’m afraid she’ll think me very silly. But, Andrew, I do want us—my father and me—to be part of the place again. Just ... just one invitation would set the ball rolling, so to speak. Could you manage it?”

“I could and I will,” he said without emphasis. “Sure you won’t have a drink?”

“No, I must be going. Father’s got those beastly adventurer types coming in tonight and I want to get dinner over early.”

“The salvage group?” commented Andrew with a smile. ‘“I think we can leave it to the Colonel not to underwrite anything as nebulous as the lost Salamander.”

Camilla Marchant pushed herself gracefully to her feet. Andrew did go down with her to the car, but he left the door wide, and both were fully in view. Karen looked out there and felt a little sick. Camilla was showing off the car, laughing at something he had said, and answering blithely. She was no doubt telling him that she had chosen the color because it was her favorite as well as Andrew’s. A fine, translucent yellow.

To Karen’s relief, Andrew had no sooner watched the woman depart than Tony Horwell turned up. Quiet, homely Tony, who looked a little jaded and who was as far removed from deceit and intrigue as Camilla Marchant was close to it. He had come on a business matter, but was persuaded to take a drink and enjoy the last of the quickly dying day. When, after the lamps were lit, he made as if to leave them, Karen lifted a hasty, detaining hand.

“Stay and eat with us, Tony—unless you were going elsewhere?”

Tony shot a glance at Andrew. “No, I was only going home for the evening.”

“Then stay,” she repeated.

“Sure,” said Andrew smoothly. “Have dinner with us.”

“I haven’t changed,” said Tony awkwardly.

“You don’t have to when you’re taking pot-luck,” said Karen quickly. “The bathroom is all yours, if you’d like a wash.”

He still hesitated, but Andrew waved a hand, and Tony went from the room. Perversely, Karen wished he hadn’t gone so soon. She picked up the glasses.

“I’ll tell Min Gan we’ll be three.”

“He always cooks plenty. Why so keen to have a guest for dinner?”

She took an interest in the glasses she held. “I thought it would be pleasant. I like Tony.”

“And Tony likes you.”

“I hope so.”

He leaned against the wall and surveyed her with an interest both watchful and mocking. “It’s peculiar you should say that. A day or two ago I asked him to come along for lunch. He hedged and said you wouldn’t want the bother. I told him you liked him, and he used the words you used just now. I hope so’.”

“It’s a conventional expression.”

“I wonder?” He shifted slightly. “It’s possible that you’re the sort of couple who might be drawn together.”

“Are you dissecting again?”

“No—stating facts. Tony’s a bit taut over something—probably his job. And you’re more than a bit taut over something—and I don’t have to mention what that is. You might find it awfully easy to console each other. But you don’t need me to tell you that you hadn’t better.”

She looked straight at him. “I don’t seem to know you, Andrew, not at all. At this moment I’d find it awfully easy to throw something at you. Why won’t you leave me alone?”

He lifted one eyebrow. “Atta girl. I refuse to leave you alone, but that light in your eye is quite encouraging. I was only pointing out that you and Tony might have one or two things in common.”

“Well, I daresay we have!”

“So long as you realize it wouldn’t be good policy for you to discuss them.”

“Andrew, for heaven’s sake...”

“Calm down, my child. What you won’t accept is that there are complications in life that you’ve never even dreamed of.”

“They wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t gone a little mad and tied myself to you!”

From the sudden sparks in his eyes and the tightening of a muscle in his jaw she knew the words had flicked him; but she felt no triumph.

His tones hard, he said, “There’s a sort of legend about frustrated wives and sympathetic best friends. What you have to remember is that you’re not frustrated except by your own will. If Tony began to see himself as your confidant I’d have him out of Nemaka on a chartered plane in a matter of hours.”

This left her speechless for a moment, but finally she said huskily, “I thought we were going to be companionable for a while, but you couldn’t possibly keep it up, could you? You’re determined that this ... this farcical marriage should go the way you want it, but even you can’t be remotely happy about it.”

“No,” he said slowly and a little heavily, “I’m certainly not that. Candidly, I can’t think what got into me in England—to make me so blind to your extreme youth and innocence. But get into me it did, and I’ll make something worthwhile of it if it takes every ounce of forebearance and patience I can muster. If it also makes me a trifle violent at times you’ll have to endure it, I’m afraid. After all, this is one situation I haven’t met before.”

From the depths of her pain she said distinctly, “That’s bad luck. I’m sure you’ve met all the other situations involving a man and a woman.” And swiftly aware that he was on the point of making a decisive movement towards her, she hurried out of the room.

In the kitchen, she added another sliced tomato and a tin of asparagus tips to the salad, a gill of milk to the soup and a few canned Vienna sausages to the casserole. She felt weighted and desperately sad, could not help recollecting that both Andrew and that woman had called her a coward. How true was it? Was it cowardly to be gentle, to want nothing better than to cook and keep house and take care of loved ones? Of course not, but those two weren’t interested in that side of life. To Camilla Marchant she was a coward because she refused to face the fact that Andrew did not love her. Andrew thought she shrank from marriage itself. In a way they were both right—the moment she accepted the fact of Andrew’s cold bloodedness she would have to leave him, and under present conditions she did shrink form marriage. With every nerve in her body she wanted Andrew’s lovemaking ... but only if he loved her. She just wasn’t constructed to accept it from a man who was heartless.

But you don’t love someone who is heartless, and she did love Andrew. It wasn’t just attraction or infatuation. Simply thinking of him she could feel tears in her throat and a terrible yearning for the kind of husband she knew he could be.

She had to repair her complexion and return to the living room, where Anai was laying the table and Tony was communing with a second drink.

“Andrew’s cleaning up,” Tony said. “May I pour something for you?”

“No, thank you. How are things, Tony?”

“They don’t alter much, on Nemaka. How are you spending the days?”

“I haven’t done much, so far. I did go bathing once with a couple of the women. I’ve got a car now.”

“So I believe. How do you feel about Rita Vaughan?”

“I think I could like her.”

“She can’t forgive herself for behaving so badly the night she came here. It’s none of my business, of course...”

“Are you pausing for me to tell you not to be silly?”

He smiled. “It’s true—it’s not my business. But Clive Vaughan’s a good chap, and if only Rita were contented he’d be happy. I just thought that if you want to do some exploring by car and need a companion, Rita would love it and it might help them both.”

“I’ll go and see Rita tomorrow morning. She did send me an apology, you know.”

He nodded. “I’ve watched her grow thin and irritable.”‘ He stopped, looked down at his drink and said very quietly, “I don’t want to see it happen to you, Karen.”

She said lightly, “Surely you don’t think it might? I haven’t been here a week yet!”

“With you it’s different. You had a shock when you got here and I was responsible for it. I hate saying this, but it took Rita several months to reach a point where she didn’t care for being alone with her husband. If you want to throw me out for saying that, you may.”

It is odd how radically one can change, in even a few hours, if the cause is drastic. Karen, who had decided only yesterday that she would never confide in another human being, found herself reflecting bitterly that though Andrew had threatened dire consequences if she became confiding with Tony Horwell, there was no one else to whom she could turn. Obviously, the women were not to be trusted. Mrs. Mears seemed dependable, but Karen did not know her well enough, and in any case the very thought of turning to anyone but Tony, who knew Andrew better than any other man and whose loyalty could be depended upon, was anathema. Yet the last thing she wanted was to cause trouble between the two men.

She said, experimentally, “Camilla Marchant came here this afternoon. She waited till Andrew came in, and asked him to wangle an invitation up here for herself and her father.”

The lines about Tony’s eyes deepened. “I was afraid she’d do something like that now her father is in the clear. Was she unpleasant?”

“Very.”

Urgently, but not very clearly, he said, “We can’t speak about this now, but there may be something I can do about it. Leave it with me.”

When Andrew came in a moment later Tony was near the door, talking about the lagoon by starlight.

Karen had no appetite that evening. Her head ached and she felt a little sick. Andrew told her firmly that there were certain things she must definitely eat, but she noticed he did not take his usual large helpings himself.

At a quarter to ten she said goodnight to the two men and went to bed. She had been lying in the darkness for about half an hour when Tony went down the drive, and as the house seemed quiet after that, she decided it was safe to slip into the bathroom for an aspirin. It was warm and dark in the corridor, but the tiles of the bathroom floor were blessedly cool underfoot. Rather than snap on a light, she moved carefully in the darkness, opened the cabinet and found the bottle of tablets. As she half filled a tumbler her head throbbed and she was trembling. Nervous fatigue filled her with a pulsing sensation of nausea. Her fingers had hardly the strength to unscrew the bottle cap.

The room was suddenly flooded with light and Andrew stood in the doorway gazing at her in consternation.

“Feel bad?” he demanded swiftly.

In the figured silk pyjamas, her face pale and clammy, her fingers shaking as she held the glass, she looked like a child sickening for some ailment.

“It’s only a headache. I’m taking a couple of aspirins.”

He took glass and bottle from her fingers. “If you feel a bit sick the tepid water from the tap will only worsen it. And you’d better have codeine, not aspirin. Go back to your room. I’ll get some ice-water.”

She swayed a little as she passed him and he steadied her. In her room, she sank on to the edge of her bed. She hadn’t had a head like this before, wasn’t headache prone, anyway. One way and another it had been such a gruelling day. Chilly, she wished she had been quicker about swallowing the aspirin.

Andrew returned, carrying a tumbler which was half full of an effervescing milky mixture; he set it down on the bedside table. Deftly he straightened the sheets and rearranged the pillows.

“Just sit in while I take your temperature,” he said quietly.

“There’s really no need,” she whispered as she stood up.

“It’s only a precaution—the first thing we always do here. Come on, now. I want your temperature before you drink this stuff.”

She obeyed him mechanically, took the thermometer into her mouth. She felt his fingers touching her forehead and temple before they came to rest on the pulse in her wrist. Of their own volition, it seemed, her own fingers curled tightly, and she saw his reaction; a faint thinning of his lips, a quick dark glance at her. Vaguely she realized that one of the things he found most difficult to tolerate was her physical shrinking from him. Other evasions he could handle mercilessly or with charm; the physical kind left him powerless.

He read the thermometer. “Only slightly up,” he said. “Drink this stuff now. It’ll put you right.”

She swallowed the liquid, gave him the glass and lay back, still pale and glistening, her hair a fine cloud on the pillow, her eyes large and shadowed. Gently he pulled up the blanket, and as he moved he said, on a hard sigh, “That was an odd thing to do—find the aspirins in the dark. I know the switches are noisy, but even if I’d gone to bed you had the right to waken me.”

“I didn’t want to make a fuss over a bad head.”

“It’s one of my privileges,” he said in soft, vibrant tones. “I want to take care of you when you’re unwell. You must have felt rocky during the evening. Why didn’t you tell me?” Apparently he knew the answer to that one, for he went on, “Never mind now. Is the nausea wearing off?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Good. Relax and get some sleep.”

“I’ll try. Goodnight, Andrew.”

He hesitated, as though he hadn’t meant to leave her yet. Then, straightening, he turned away and said, “Goodnight, Karen.” The door closed quietly behind him.

Once more all became quiet in the house, though the waves seemed to roar a little louder than usual; tonight the sound was grating, not a soothing overtone to the rustling of palms.

The headache receded and she almost dozed. But demon thoughts wrenched her back to consciousness, and after that she lay wide-eyed for a long time, listening. It must be getting very late now, but she was sure the doors still stood open, every window wide; the outside noises were so close. She turned restlessly, and eventually she got up again and slipped on a wrap, drew back the bolt of her french window and stepped outside. Yes, though it was well after midnight, there was still a light in the living room; it streamed down over the front veranda and lighted part of the garden. Was he reading in there? Somehow she didn’t think so. She wished she could see him.

Scarcely breathing, and holding her head stiffly to avoid a renewal of the throbbing, she moved very carefully along the side veranda towards the front. Could it be possible to see into the room from the corner? Not far in, but it might be enough. Andrew’s chair backed the main door and was close to the french window; if he sat there she would see his head and perhaps a shoulder. It had become strangely imperative that she should know how he looked when he was away from her and yet under the same roof.

She readied the corner and stopped abruptly. He was out there in the veranda, just at the edge of the square of light. Still fully dressed, he was leaning against a post, his head bent and finger and thumb pressing against his eyes, as if he had a pain there. And there was a bitter, drawn look about the lean jaw. Andrew ... in pain! Her heart was thudding in her chest, her throat was choked with that yearning which had become part of her being.

Then she saw what he must have seen ... or perhaps he had picked it up in the garden and placed it there on the veranda table. A thin yellow scarf which no doubt matched Camilla’s new car.

So that was what had kept him out there so late, the cause of the bitterness. Camilla’s scarf, the scent of the hair it had covered, the sudden realization that had he waited he could have had Camilla. With Colonel Marchant free of stigma, it might have taken only a few weeks to persuade the Governor and his wife that Camilla would make a worthy and suitable mate for the Senior Executive Officer. When Andrew wanted something his persuasions were potent; no one knew that better than Karen. Only a few days ago she herself could have refused him nothing.

And now he was tied to a girl he had chosen deliberately and without love, and being Andrew he would go through with it down to the smallest detail—like dosing her for a headache! The wrong wife might have mined his career, but a divorce would certainly do so.

She turned blindly and crept back along the veranda. The headache was beginning again, and she must have lurched a little towards the end of the veranda for she felt the swift stab of a thorn into the sole of her foot. The bougainvillea, she thought dully. It hurt, but she didn’t care.

Leaving the door wide, she once more found her bed and lay staring at the dark growth outside. It was as sombre as her own future.

It was an ideal spot for a picnic. Leafy mango trees and thick wild oranges wove their branches into a ceiling of deep green above a carpet of ginger flowers and laurel vine, and on the open side there was the sea with an outrigger resting here and there on the calm blue surface. If they walked forward from the shade of their vast green alcove they could see the rocks at each end of the beach and a few islanders collecting odds and ends washed up by the tide.

“In my romantic days—about two years ago—I used to come here with Clive almost every Sunday,” Rita said flippantly. “We’d laze and bathe and make love and talk and it would be evening in no time at all.”

Karen spread the rug. “Why did you stop coming?”

A laconic shrug. “Why does one stop anything? It lost its magic. I tried to run away—got down to the quay with a suitcase. You’ll never guess who returned me to the fold—Andrew. He saw me there and took me home, threatened all sorts of things if I told Clive what I’d had in mind.”

“Is that why you say things to shock him—because he knows too much about you?”

“Maybe. He’ll be glad when he’s got us off to Hong Kong, but what do they want with a forestry officer there? They’ll send us somewhere else—but not to England.”

She lifted her narrow bony shoulders. “Do you know what Clive says—that he’ll hand in his resignation and book us on the next plane home as soon as he’s absolutely sure it’s what I need. What would you make of that?”

Karen found plastic plates and glasses, lifted a vacuum jug of iced lemon from the basket. “It sounds very sane,” she said. “I suppose he feels that the climate and what he can promise you shouldn’t really be important to your relationship with each other. That comes first.”

Rita gave a cynical grin. “You know something? You and Clive would get along dandy. He’d love to have a woman he could be sure of, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you preferred that sort of man, too. Not that you can’t be sure of Andrew—I didn’t mean that,” she tacked on hastily. “I feel he’s a bit too much for a woman to live up to, that’s all. Somehow I can’t see you developing into a Lady Prichard.”

“I don’t know her, but neither can I,” said Karen. “A sandwich or a piece of chicken? Shall I pour a drink for you now?”

“Plain lemon?” Rita grimaced. “Haven’t drunk it since my downy days, but I don’t suppose it will poison me. This is good chicken, but then you have one of the best cooks on Nemaka.” She leaned back on one “Nice getting right away from Government Town without the men, isn’t it? Seeing that this is only your fifth day here I’m a bit surprised that Andrew let you come.”

Karen did not mention that she had made her own decision and left a note for Andrew to find at lunch-time. “It was time I did some exploring. I wish we could climb to the top of Oponui.”

“The men are bound to go up there again before the hurricane season and they’ll take you. I climbed it once. From the higher slopes, on a clear day, you can see the whole of the couple of thousand square miles of Nemaka and the outline of Filfua.” Jadedly she ended, “Very thrilling.”

Karen slipped a sandwich which tasted like sawdust down the side of the basket. She sipped her lemon. “I think you’re determined to dislike everything here and it’s all because of the way you’ve made yourself feel about Clive. It’s an awful pity.”

“Now don’t you start—I have enough of that from Tony Horwell. But Tony doesn’t know the half of it.” She yawned, stretched her thin arms and slipped out of her sun frock. “Some shut-eye, a bathe, and then you may lecture me if you like. But there’s one thing you can tell me now. You’re a newcomer and a woman. I behaved abominably at your house and you must know by now that I gossiped appallingly about you before you arrived. Why should you care what happens to my marriage?”

Karen smiled. “I really don’t know.”

“You’re sure Andrew hasn’t persuaded you to get to work on me, so that Clive will stay on in the Leaman Islands?”

“Quite sure.”

“Good.” She settled back with her hands under her head and her eyes closed. “I believe you’re even more of a sport than we realize, Karen.”

After that there was silence. The picnic basket, almost untouched, stood between their recumbent bodies; the rug was soft, the air soporific.

They awoke and bathed in the gently moving sea. Karen, floated, saw multi-colored fish, drifting weeds, the kaleidoscopic brilliance of sunshine on her eyelids. The water felt warm as milk, but it was cool enough to soothe the throbbing in her foot. The salt water would be good for that sore place; after the extraction of such a murderous thorn the flesh was bound to hurt a bit. Still, she was healthy, and had never had a spot turn septic in her life.

Rita plodded back up the beach and Karen followed her. They dragged off their caps, shook out damp hair and talked of the cigarette they would have when they reached their nook.

They were only a dozen feet from the car when they saw the two men who had taken possession of the picnic basket and rug. One of them unashamedly munched a sandwich while the other, rather sheepishly, swallowed something and scrambled to his feet. They were around thirty-five, wore shorts and faded shirts, and the one who took his time about standing up was the buccaneering type Karen had seen the other day.

“Hallo,” he said, in a surprisingly good voice. “You girls don’t know how to treat a picnic. Thanks a lot.”

Rita was annoyed. “That’s not funny, Captain Kidd. I’ll get your permit rescinded!”

“You wouldn’t do that, duckie, even if you could.” He bowed to Karen. “You’re new here. I’m Ben Brooke, not Captain Kidd. He’s been dead some time. And this chap is my partner. We’re working on the Salamander.”

“You call that work,” scoffed Rita, rubbing a towel over her hair. “Any time I’ve ever seen you you were loafing. And I shouldn’t be too sure I can’t get your permit cancelled. I happen to be a friend of the wife of the Senior Executive Officer.”

“Eliot? I know a lot about him, but I hadn’t heard he was married.”

Before he could dilate upon this, Karen said, “I’m Mrs. Eliot. Would you mind leaving us now?”

The man—he was not much above average height, but he had a fine head and shoulders that looked brawny—tamed and looked at her. “Forgive me for staring,” he said. “I was sure you were someone’s daughter. You’re far too young and pretty to tie yourself down for life.”

“You’re heading for trouble,” said Rita musically. ‘You’d better scram.”

Ben Brooke laughed. “To think we stole your lunch! We wouldn’t have dared if we’d known who you were.”

By now, Karen had buttoned her sun frock over the swim suit. “That’s all right. It’s lucky you didn’t have time to get started on the coffee. Goodbye.”

He didn’t move. “I say, I really am sorry,” he said. “We drank the coffee first.”

An instant’s silence, then they all laughed, and Ben Brooke added, looking rather less dissipated for the humor in his expression, “We may as well confess that we were bored and did it for a joke. We thought that if we ate your lunch you’d come along and have some coffee and biscuits at our camp.”

“No sign of the treasure ship?” asked Rita sympathetically. “I expect you get awfully tired of paddling about in frog flippers and pouncing upon pieces of nothing. You know what I heard? The Salamander sank off Java!”

“That’s more encouraging than the one we heard last week—that it sank near Falmouth. Will you come for the coffee?”

“No, thanks,” said Karen.

“We’d love to,” said Rita.

Karen shook her head. “Definitely not. Please go now.”

The other man, who looked quiet and humorous, moved away. Ben Brooke hesitated, met Karen’s glance and said, “Pity about the starch. It spoils you.” And he turned and walked away towards the beach with his companion.

Rita put on a cigarette, curved an arm about her drawn-up legs. “There are two of us. We could have had some coffee and then come back here. He’s quite a man, our Captain Kidd. Never done a good solid job of work in his life, but why should he worry? Before he came here he ran a pearl fleet.”

Karen lit her own cigarette. “How do you know so much about him?”

“I took the trouble to find out—mostly from the shopkeepers. I first met Ben when I was shopping; he was getting supplies.”

“You’re really friendly with him?”

“Not friendly, but he’s got something, hasn’t he? I haven’t seen him more than three or four times, but he sort of ... exhilarates me, makes me feel young and daring. I’d love to know him better.”

“I think it’s as well you don’t. He’s probably most unstable. I didn’t like his manner.”

“He didn’t like yours,” said Rita mischievously. “Don’t you ever feel drawn to the rapscallion type? They’re so much more exciting than men who plod along in a job.” A shrug. “But then Andrew isn’t a plodder, is he? He’s a fighter. You’re lucky, Karen.”

They finished their cigarettes without speaking, dried out and took a walk along the beach. Rita’s long thin legs carried her on across the rocks, and for some minutes she stood staring at what she could see. When she came back she shook her head regretfully.

“To think I could have had coffee and biscuits over there with a couple of adventurous types—three, including the mechanic. I haven’t quite the nerve to go there alone.”

“I hope not. I don’t want to sound prissy, but Clive would be terribly hurt if he found out that you even hanker for that kind of thing.”

“Oh, Clive,” she said disparagingly. “The reason I fell out of love with him was because he turned into a stuffed shirt.”

As they walked back Karen turned and looked at her. Rita’s hollow cheeks and burning eyes gave her a ravenous look. The mane of copper-colored hair, blowing now, looked like a dying flame. Whether she was truly disillusioned and unhappy or merely restless to the point of taking excitement anywhere or merely restless to the point of taking excitement anywhere she found it, Karen was too inexperienced to tell. She only knew there was rather more to Rita Vaughan than anyone in Government Road was aware of.

The sun was well over in the west when they drove home. In the shopping area several white men had left their offices were making a few purchases before going to their bachelor quarters. Rita waved to them, and made the cynical comment:

“The poor saps envy married men—they all hitch up as soon as they can. Can you beat it?”

“They don’t happen to have your slant on life, Rita. They’re just ordinary men with different characteristics.”

“Just like Clive,” was the resigned answer. “If I ever leave him it will do him as much good as it will do me.”

“And that’s very little,” Karen said. And then, dully, she realized she was automatically voicing the conventional sentiments. If ever I leave Clive ... If ever I leave Andrew ...

She stopped outside the Vaughan’s bungalow. “No, I won’t come in,” she said. “I’ve just time to change before Andrew gets home.”

“Well, thanks for the outing. It’s done my nasty nature a bit of good.”

As they had tamed into Government Road a weight had hovered about Karen’s heart, but as she left Rita’s house and drove on down to the end of the road, depression fell round her like a storm-cloud, making her clammy and apprehensive. Maybe she’d feel better after a bath.

But the big government car was on the drive, and as she passed it and drove into the garage, Karen’s nerve began to fail her. She wouldn’t stay in the living room and argue with him; far better to smile and walk straight through. There was nothing to say, anyway. They both knew that the most dreadful mistake of their lives had been made in a small village church in Cornwall.

She left the picnic basket outside but draped the gaily-patterned towel over her arm. At a normal pace she crossed to the house and entered the living room. He wasn’t there, thank heaven. Swiftly, in her room, she got out of the frock and bathing suit and put on a dressing gown. She pushed up the short hair and fastened it with a comb, found clean underwear and turned towards the door.

It opened suddenly and Andrew was there. She had never seen his jaw more taut, his eyes so angry. His teeth snapped as he spoke.

“All right, you’ve asserted yourself. Where have you been?”

Steady now, she told her racing pulses. “I told you in my note I was going for a drive and a picnic with Rita Vaughan.”

“You left at ten this morning. It’s now after five!”

“We took our time.”

“You picked a good day for it. The Governor’s back.”

“Sir ... Wallace?” she said, and the color drained from her face. “You said he wasn’t due till Monday.”

“He changed his mind—or rather, Lady Prichard changed it for him. They heard on Filfua that we’d arrived, and she decided she couldn’t wait any longer to see you. They came early—for you! And you weren’t here to greet them.”

She was trembling now. “How was I to know they’d come early? And why should they come especially for me?”

He smiled unpleasantly. “Because they happen to have some regard for me. Does that surprise you? We’re going to the Residency for dinner tonight.”

“Oh, no,” she said faintly. “Couldn’t you say that I...”

He looked at her, saw her small and pale and pleading, her hair skewered high like a child’s for her bath so that her neck looked young, her throat vulnerable; his glance lowered to the gossamer underwear in her hands. He took in a sharp breath and turned away, thrusting a tight hand into his pocket. There was no anger in his voice as he answered, only an odd roughness.

“We’re due there at seven,” he said. “Wear that pink brocade thing we chose together. It’s just right for the first meeting.” And he went back to his room.

CHAPTER FIVE

They met in the living room at a quarter to seven. Tall and broad-shouldered in a fresh white dinner jacket, his face clean-cut, his dark hair slicked back so that the single wave was almost ironed out, Andrew looked distinguished and austere. His comprehensive glance at Karen’s slight figure in the simple pale pink brocade, at her slender arms which showed a slight tan, her bare neck and the lovely pearl-drop earrings, was now almost impersonal. It was as though he were trying to obliterate that other look in the bedroom. He picked up a glass half filled with milk and put it into her hand, offered a small plate on which lay two white capsules.

“I went over to Jake Mears for these,” he said. “A mild tranquillizer.”

“I’d rather not take them, thank you.”

“I didn’t prescribe them, Jake did. I told him you’d been out all day and were probably tired, and that we had to dine at the Residency. He said the two capsules with milk are a temporary remedy for nervous strain. Go on, take them and forget them.”

She did, of course, though she knew they were both aware that it would need more than a drug to ease the atmosphere between them. Together they went out to the car.

They drove along Government Road in silence. This evening there was a little more wind than usual and part of the radiant sky was blackened out by slow-moving cloud. The heavier trees scarcely swayed their branches, but the tall palms made grotesquely beautiful shapes against the stars, their fans blowing gaily one way with a sheen across them.

For the first time Karen passed between the stone pillars that guarded the drive to the Residency. She saw the great mansion set back among trees, lights blazing from all the lower windows, the flag flying proudly from its post. But somehow none of it was real. Even Andrew, swinging the car into the parking space at the side of the house, had become remote and somehow blanketed away from her. Perhaps it was the effect of those tablets.

As they mounted the wide shallow steps he took her elbow, and that was how they entered the portals of the Residency; together, both smiling, a strong, good-looking man with his pretty wife.

The secretary, Bingham, was in the white-panelled hall. “Good evening, Mrs. Eliot. Hallo, Andrew. His Excellency is using the small sitting room tonight. The McLennans and Austin are already there. Will you go straight along?”

“Sure. How many are we likely to be?”

“Ten altogether. Here come the Coppards, and that’s the lot. ‘Scuse me?”

Karen was led to the left, where a servant in white with gold marking here and there stood smartly beside an open door. Her first impression of the room showed ornate white walls, a modest chandelier, old walnut cabinets, faded blue damask and several people. The tall man with wiry dark hair going grey and a fine soldierly bearing detached himself from the group and came straight across the room, with both hands outstretched.

“Sir Wallace Prichard,” said Andrew. “This is Karen.”

“So this is your wife!” exclaimed the Governor. “I must congratulate you on your excellent taste. My dear, I officially welcome you to our islands. I hope you’ll be wonderfully happy here.”

“You’re very kind,” said Karen.

The next moment, as if by pre-arrangement, Lady Prichard reached her husband’s side. She was not much taller than Karen, very slender and impeccably turned out in silver-grey georgette. Her only jewellery was a necklace of small sapphires. She was fifty-odd, with small patrician features, light blue eyes and swathed chestnut hair which showed a little grey at the temples. She looked what she was: a woman who had gladly and wholeheartedly given her life and marriage to the Colonial Service. Perhaps, thought Karen fleetingly, she was the more dangerous for that. Dangerous? Why on earth had the word come into her mind?

Andrew said suavely, “Marcia, this is Karen. She’s a little too overwhelmed at the moment to tell you how badly she felt about not being on hand to greet you this morning.” Then, to Karen, softly, but just loud enough for the Prichards to hear, “Darling, this is Lady Prichard.”

Again it must have been the tablets which bore Karen through the next minute or two. Darling. In this case the word was synonymous with perfidy. No wonder he had wanted her tranquillized!

Lady Prichard said, “I’m so happy to know you, Karen, and I’m only sorry we weren’t here to welcome you on the day you arrived. I rather suspect, though,” with a sophisticated, knowledgeable smile at Andrew, “that your husband decided to get you established during our absence. Let the servant take your wrap and purse. I’m sure you’d both like a drink.”

The first hurdle was past. Karen smiled a greeting to the other guests, accepted a drink of some sort and sat down beside Mrs. Coppard. For about ten minutes she listened, without speaking, to an account of a letter the Coppards had received from their son who was at school in England. By the time Lady Prichard deemed it advisable to change the composition of the couple of groups, Karen felt calm and resigned. She had a few words with Bingham, a few more with young Austin, was conscious of Andrew’s smooth and watchful presence, the cleverness with which he supplied her with companions who were undemanding.

Dinner was announced, and Karen found herself entering the family dining room with the Governor. Andrew was just ahead with Lady Prichard on his arm; he was definitely mid-twentieth century, but he did the courtly business as if born to it. Well, no doubt he had been born to it, at Welhayes. Karen had been born to cottage china and a prized silver tea set that was used only for visitors.

She sat at Sir Wallace’s right with Mr. McLennan on her other side. Andrew was down the table with Lady Marcia. He hadn’t told Karen they were at first names, but she could see how he had graduated to it; the woman was almost flatter-proof, but not quite. A man such as Andrew, keen, diplomatic, with his job always at his fingertips, was one after Lady Prichard’s own heart. So long as he showed all the attributes necessary to a potential governor she would accord him all the privileges he wanted. Also, a woman who dominated through being a woman had to be fed with a modicum of compliments. While she watched to see that the guests were well but not too zealously fed, she responded to Andrew’s conversation like a flower to strong light. Obviously he was amusing her vastly; he was probably telling her about his leave, omitting Cornwall.

The food was no doubt delicious, but to Karen it had no color or taste. She wasn’t miserable or apprehensive; she wasn’t anything. The course came to an end. Lady Prichard rose and led the three other women into a boudoir where they could mend their make-up. Being the modern type of Colonial wife, she did not insist that they linger and talk, and within ten minutes they were back in the sitting room, and being served with coffee and liqueurs.

It was about an hour later that Karen found herself sitting on a small silk sofa alone with Lady Prichard. The manoeuvre had been skilful but child’s play to the seasonal first lady of the Leaman Islands. She sat looking relaxed but dignified, a polite smile on her thin, well-shaped lips.

“Well, Karen! This is my first opportunity of having a little chat with you. I suppose Andrew told you we came early from Filfua expressly to make your acquaintance?”

“Yes. I feel most honored.”

“You may as well know that we were a little cross with Andrew for being a trifle quick and secret about his marriage, but we’re too fond of him to keep it up. You are husband and wife, and we’ll go on from here. Except,” a brief pause, “that I would like to know something of your background. Andrew says your people live near Welhayes—your aunts, I believe. And your family name is Hurst?”

“Yes. My father was a solicitor.”

“An esteemed profession.” Though she didn’t sound enamored of it. “I believe you have known the Eliots all your life?”

“Yes, through my cousins. Their father was the Eliots’ doctor.”

This didn’t seem mightily to please Lady Prichard either, but then nothing did. She was too poised, right through her being, to react violently, in any direction. Karen’s background was left just there.

“I suppose you do realize,” asked the older woman, “that life with Andrew is likely to be exacting?”

The question might have been comic if Karen had possessed that particular sense of humor. “Yes, of course,” she answered. “He’s an ambitious man.”

“To give oneself completely to a career doesn’t always mean one is ambitious. In Andrew’s case I would say that he is keen to use all his talents for the good of his country. You’re young enough to consider such a sentiment high-flown, but as you learn the duties of your position you’ll change. I daresay,” with a thin smile, “that as you’ve been married such a short time you consider yourself still at the honeymoon stage?”

Tiredly Karen wondered whether it would shake Lady Marcia to know that that particular stage never had and never would be reached. “No, I don’t think so,” she said awkwardly. “Andrew has already started work.”

“So I believe, and it pleased me very much. I couldn’t really imagine him doing anything else, once he was back on Nemaka, but marriage does react peculiarly on some men. We had one young official who took quite three months to simmer down after marriage.”

Karen heard herself saying. “He must have been very much in love.”

Lady Prichard gave her a cool, amused glance. “One day you’ll be glad that you allowed your head to rule your heart. Even now, you should be very grateful and proud that Andrew chose you for his wife. However far he may go in life, he’ll take you with him. You’re most fortunate.”

By now Karen was slightly muzzy. One good thing about those tablets, she thought detachedly, was that they robbed one of all desire to assert oneself. She could sit here and listen to Lady Prichard, make brief replies when they were expected, and feel very little.

“Oh, there was something my husband insisted that I mention to you. He’s a warm-hearted man and he would have taken the greatest pleasure in toasting you and Andrew at dinner. I’m afraid I’m to blame for the fact that he didn’t. You’re very young, my dear, and I don’t wish it to appear as if the Governor were favoring you too much at the beginning. Perhaps in time, when you have proved yourself, we may give a special celebration for you here at the Residency. Let us say your first anniversary?”

Or the tenth, thought Karen; or the fifteenth. One year or twenty; what did it matter? She wouldn’t be there. She might even have said something of the sort if Andrew and the Governor had not joined them.

Andrew was smiling. “I’ve just been hearing about your adventures on some of the smaller islands, Marcia. I can imagine you sailing through those primitive ceremonies.

“They were quite jolly, but wearing. I’ve just had a nice talk with your wife. We must all meet again soon. Some time next week I must take Karen on a tour of our clinic and social centre. I think it might be a good thing if she took over my place on the primary schools committee; it would be a small step in the right direction, and if ...”

“I won’t allow that just yet,” said Andrew. “Karen’s not even acclimatized let alone settled. I’m sorry, Marcia,” with a sharp but charming smile, “but you’ll have to wait a bit before training my wife as a stand-in.”

Lady Prichard was not put out, but she said, “You vex me, Andrew. At one moment you seem to be exerting yourself to please me and the very next you’re more commanding than the Governor himself. I wonder I put up with it.”

Sir Wallace said genially, “I’ll tell you why you put up with it, my dear. You’re half in love with the fellow, always were. Don’t think I mind; it’s helped me no end to have you agree with anything Andrew might suggest!”

Lady Prichard laughed, and gestured as though her husband were merely teasing her. Yet there was just a hint of mild emotion in the glance she turned towards Andrew. “Let’s see—today is Friday. How would you like to bring Karen out to the cottage for the day on Sunday? Wallace and I thought we’d rest up there for the weekend, and it would be pleasant to be just four for the day. No secretaries, only two servants ... and do as we please.”

“We’d like that, wouldn’t we, Karen? Shall I drive you up there tomorrow morning, Sir Wallace? Then all four of us could return together on Sunday.”

“A splendid idea,” said the Governor. He gave Karen his kindly smile. “I can’t tell you how happy I am about your marriage. You’ll find many things strange, but don’t let them bother you. You’re one of us now.”

Karen, still seated beside Lady Prichard, lowered her eyelids. “Thank you, Sir Wallace. You’re very generous.”

Andrew must have caught the quiver in her voice. He looked at his watch. “It’s been a long day for you two travellers. We’ll say goodnight and start the general move.” As Karen stood up a knife pierced the ball of her foot. All evening she had been aware of a painfully tight shoe and throbbing, but the whole condition seemed to be worsening. At all costs she must walk normally. It wasn’t far to the car.

The goodnights were protracted and pleasant. The cars slipped away from the Residency, dropped off one by one as the drivers reached their homes. Andrew drove the last five hundred yards and stopped the car on his own drive. Karen got out and with an effort walked into the living room.

Just behind her Andrew said, “You did very well, little one. The Governor’s charmed, and Marcia quite unbent, I thought.”

“Well, that’s all that matters, isn’t it?” she said dully, and made as casual a movement as she could towards the door.

“Karen!”

“Yes?”

“Are you all right?”

‘Yes, of course.”

“You look pale—but you’ve had a tiring day. Like a nightcap?”

“No, thank you.”

He had already taken a bottle and glasses from the cabinet, and as he poured a finger of whisky he said, “It’s rather necessary for you to understand how things are at the Residency. The Prichards know me very well. The Old Man will take to you for your own sake, but Marcia has to like you for mine—at first, anyway. Some day I’ll explain a few things that happened before I left; I can’t do it now. In any case compared with the nightmare we seem to have made for ourselves they’re not even very important.’ He stopped, gave her a long grey stare. “Are you listening?”

“Yes, I’m listening.”

But as she spoke she moved away, and he started forward as though to detain her. Perhaps it was the extraordinary degree of tension in her eyes that halted him.

“God!” he said under his breath. “This is impossible! Then he forced a hard laugh. “One of these days you’ll goad me into handling you without gloves. You can thank your stars that you’re looking tired out at the moment. Get going!”

Karen passed a most peculiar night. The tablets from Dr. Mears performed some sort of delayed action and would have sent her to sleep had her foot not stabbed her awake every time she turned. She had examined it before getting into bed, but found movement of the foot so painful that she could not get a good look at the offending spot. Bathing it in hot water was apparently not enough; she would definitely have to do something about it tomorrow. Then she realized it was tomorrow already. Saturday—her first on the island, and she felt as if she had never lived anywhere else, or ever been free.

Anai brought her some coffee at seven, and as soon as he had gone she got up. To her consternation the foot had swollen to twice its normal size and was inflamed as far as the arch of her instep. She tried again to see the center of the trouble, was frightened anew at its strangely puffed and purple appearance in the hand mirror. It must be poisoning of some sort.

She sat on the stool at the dressing table, leaned forward with her head in her hands. She ought to have asked Anai what the tuan was likely to do this morning, whether he would go up to the offices or stay here till it was time to take the car to the Residency. Perhaps if she remained here the servant would bring her breakfast, and she could put her question.

It seemed a long time before there came another tap at the door. Involuntarily, she stretched her foot into the kneehole of the dressing table before saying, “Come in.”

It was Andrew, and he didn’t come in. From the doorway he said, “I have to go up to the Welfare Department. After that I’ll go on to the Residency and drive the Prichards out to Hill Lodge. If the old man has things to discuss I may not get back till this afternoon, but the servants will stay on duty here in the house, and I’ll certainly return as soon as I can. Would you like me to invite someone to keep you company for lunch?”

“No, thank you.”

“You mustn’t spend the day alone. There’ll be people bathing and you might like to join them.”

‘Yes, I might. I’ll be all right.”

“So long, then.” He seemed to hesitate, almost expectantly, before he turned abruptly and left the house.

Karen waited till all sound of the car had died before hobbling into the bathroom. Half an hour later, dressed, but sweating from the pain of moving about, she went into the living room. Anai appeared, bearing a salad of wild oranges and papaya.

She shook her head. “No breakfast, Anai. Do you know if Dr. Mears is at home?”

“He is out always at this time.”

“Then will you go over and ask Mrs. Mears to come and see me?”

“Now?” he asked, mystified.

She nodded. “At once. And then you can go back to the kitchen. Clear the table first.”

Mrs. Mears came in cheerfully, prepared for a chat. She took one startled look at Karen’s drawn face, another at the bloated plum-colored foot and said firmly, “The hospital for you. Where’s Andrew?”

“Molly,” said Karen desperately, ‘“I don’t want any fuss. Andrew has taken the Prichards out to their weekend house, and he doesn’t know about this.”

“How could he not know? It must have been pretty bad yesterday!”

“Not really. I even wore a narrow shoe at the Residency last night and got away with it. It seemed to get much worse during the night. I thought you could pierce it for me. That’s probably all it needs.”

“It needs more than that, my dear.” She was on her knees, examining the wound. “How did you do it?”

“I walked barefoot in the veranda. It was a thorn; I got it out, but the place didn’t heal—I can’t think why, I usually heal quickly.”

“Is there a sharp pain as well as the throbbing?

“And how!”

“Then I’m afraid the thorn broke in your foot and part of it was left in; it must have been a murderous size. It’s well down now and I couldn’t possibly get it out with an ordinary probe.”

“Please try, Molly.”

Her pleading, the huskiness of her voice, made Mrs. Mears stand up and look more closely at her. She gestured, said reasoningly, “You must already have had frightful pain with it, and probing deep without a local anaesthetic would nearly kill you. It won’t take long to drive you down to the hospital and get Jake’s assistant to do it. Within a few hours the swelling will have disappeared completely.”

“But you could do it here, if I could stick it?”

“How do I know? I’m not risking it.” She hesitated, and asked point blank, “Karen, why didn’t you tell Andrew first thing this morning, before he left?”

Karen looked down at the foot. “He’d already this arrangement with the Prichards, and I couldn’t upset it I knew you were right next door and would help.”

“But haven’t you even told him you trod on a thorn?”

Karen had an answer for that too. “It was silly not to, but he’s warned me against walking in the garden barefoot. I’ve told you I got the thorn out and thought that was the end of it.”

Obviously, Molly Mears did not understand, but she became practical. “We’ll have to use your car. I’m not much of a driver but I’ll get us there. Young Dr. Wilmot will be on duty and if you’re so keen not to make a thing of it I’ll act as nurse. But” quite emphatically, “you should have told Andrew this morning. He could have taken you down to the hospital before he left. It wouldn’t have put him back more than half an hour.”

Mrs. Mears didn’t know Andrew, thought Karen despondently. Had he taken charge there would have been a polite note of regret to the Residency and the matter of the poisoned foot would have become a major operation—not for others but for Karen.

She smiled. “Well, it’s too late now. If you’re sure you don’t mind driving me down, let’s go at once.” Considering the pain she had suffered through the darned foot Karen reflected, the act of disposing or the cause of it was very minor. They arrived at the long low buildings which comprised the hospital, Karen managed the short walk into the blessed coolness of a reception room and was at once placed in a wheelchair and trundled into a surgery. Dr. Wilmot young and not very experienced, admitted that he was glad Mrs. Eliot had nothing more serious wrong with her.

“And I’d better make a neat job of this,” he added. “I’ll bet Andrew will examine the sole of your foot from every angle and send me his report. You’re far too new and precious to be tampered with!”

“Just go ahead in your own way,” said Karen. “It’s only a thorn, anyway.”

She remained in the wheelchair, was given a newspaper and told to relax. Her leg was raised fairly high on a cushioned platform, a heap of muslin was so placed that even if she looked she could not see what was happening, there came the prick of the hypo needle and the pain gradually eased into numbness. After that she watched curiously. Dr. Wilmot cut, Molly Mears swabbed, he cut again, more swabbing. They shook their heads, and had another go; the bloodied thorn, resting on a scrap of gauze, was shown to Karen.

“Little beast,” she said. “Am I relieved to see the back of it.”

No bandage, she told them firmly; just a large circular dressing. Dr. Wilmot said he thought that would be enough; the wound would have practically healed by tomorrow. And that was that.

Mrs. Mears drove them back to the house and had a cup of tea with Karen. She asked about the dinner at the Residency, what Karen thought of Lady Prichard.

“She was cordial,” Karen said guardedly. “I wasn’t alone with her for long.”

“I’ve never liked her,” Molly confessed. ‘Too cold and shrewd, though she’s an ideal type for the Governor. You can’t shake her from the correct routine, but she’s not old-fashioned about it. She sees herself as a cornerstone of the Commonwealth.”

“I suppose that’s necessary to her position,” Karen said. “Her whole attitude is based on her knowledge of the Governor’s importance. I think she’s keeping alive a spirit that’s only too willing to die in these days, and she s to be commended for it. There can’t be many of her kind left.

“Maybe not,” Mrs. Mears agreed, and she shrugged philosophically. “The new generation of officials’ wives is an odd mixture. I don’t wonder Andrew snapped you up from the crowd.” She put down her cup. “Talking of odd mixtures, what’s happening to Rita Vaughan?”

“Rita? Is she changing? I’m afraid I wouldn’t know.”

“I suppose not—you’ve only recently met us all. Rita has been here about two years and she was married six months before that. She always had the burned-out look, but she and Clive seemed quite normal together for a long time. Then she gradually became more and more cynical and uncaring in what she said. You’ve been out with her once or twice, haven’t you? How did you find her?”

“Quite good fun.”

“Didn’t she complain about Clive’s obtuseness?”

“Vaguely. Perhaps she hasn’t enough to do.”

“That’s quite certain, but it’s impossible to interest her in good works and she purposely plays an atrocious hand of bridge.”

“How do you mean, that she’s changing?”

“It’s difficult to say. She laughs more, she’s been going to a little Nemakan dressmaker and turning up in rather bizarre clothes, she never stops at one drink even though she knows she can’t really take more, and she occasionally walks down to the Forestry Department, tells one of the clerks that she’s taking a car and drives away.” Molly looked genuinely puzzled. “I never gossip for the sake of it, Karen. I’m concerned about Rita.”

“But if she’s taking more pains with her dress and seems happier, what is there to worry about?”

The doctor’s wife said flatly, “All I know is that it’s not her husband who’s making her happy—if it is happiness, which I doubt. One has only to remember Clive as he was when he first came here to know that he’s been feeling more and more wretched.”

“Can anyone do anything about it?”

“Interfering is a chancy business. I think Rita was really sorry she talked like a moron in your house that night, and she’s come to like you. You’re cool and restrained; you might be able to get her to talk about herself. She just doesn’t have a close woman friend, and I feel she needs one.”

Karen, young and hurt and horribly bewildered, wondered what she could possibly offer to the sophisticated Rita. She herself was so badly in need of safety and peace of heart.

“She’s thirty,” she said. “She’s not likely to tell me her innermost feelings. Maybe it’s the move to Hong Kong that excites her.”

Soon after that Mrs. Mears went home. Karen leafed lethargically through a couple of magazines, paused to be thankful that already her foot felt almost healthy, and walked slowly out into the breathless heat of the garden. It was strange how still it could be beside the sea. Today even the palms drooped their fronds dejectedly, and the sea merely whispered as it crept over the sand; the lagoon was like molten glass. A lizard darted across the path; a papaya fell with a heavy clunk into the thick growth under the trees. It was too hot to move, and with relief she reentered the house and sank into a chair.

And inevitably she thought of Andrew, who had the gaunt strength of an eagle, who was kind and mocking and, in spite of everything, very dear. He frightened her—she had to admit that—and he angered her as she had never been angered before. But last night in this room—that look in his face when she shrank ever so slightly from his touch; the harsh rasp of his breath, the tightness of his voice. Had there been a ... a sort of pleading in him? Andrew ... pleading? It wasn’t possible. The grey eyes, in spite of the tautly smiling mouth, had glittered a warning.

From where she sat she saw his books arranged on the shelves; technical stuff, best-selling biographies—no fiction, except the few novels he had bought for her in England. There was nothing in this house that would add to her knowledge of the man she had married.

Here in Nemaka, both of them had changed. Karen had withdrawn into herself and hardened. And Andrew? Wistfully she remembered how she had regarded him in England. A very masculine face, often amused in expression but unrevealing. His vitality had excited in her a sweet and innocent response, and the very thought of marriage had created in her a sort of delirium. And now all that was gone. She could contemplate the future only with dread.

She felt nervous tears in her throat and against her eyelids. How would this appalling muddle end? Would she ever be able to persuade herself to accept second-best? Karen thought not.

Anai had come to set the table for lunch when Tony Horwell appeared. He carried some papers, but apparently they were only a cover, for he put them on a chair as he greeted her. Karen sent the servant for ice and told Tony to help himself to a drink.

“One for you, too?” he asked.

“Just lime and soda with a cube of ice. Nice of you to call, Tony.”

“I knew Andrew was out. He smiled. “Sounds terrible, doesn’t it? But I’ve been hoping to see you alone. I did a bit of detective work on Camilla Marchant—and discovered nothing. She may have been unpleasant to you, but I wouldn’t say she’s dangerous. One false move and she could lose her father’s whole business. She wouldn’t do that.”

Karen accepted this in silence. At last she asked, very quietly, “You think Andrew was really in love with her, don’t you?”

“Good heavens, no,” he said hotly. Then, meeting her dark, sceptical glance: “I had no definite reason for thinking it. They danced well together, looked good together and seemed to enjoy each other, but probably most of the feeling was on Camilla’s side. When Andrew helped them to avoid a court case she was naturally full of relief and gratitude, but I’m certain the fact that everyone up here dropped the Marchants made her furious. Then Andrew went on leave.”

“You think she didn’t know of the rumors about him—that he’d had instructions to marry?” she asked evenly.

Tony winced visibly. “Karen, don’t think of that. I’d do anything to atone for shooting off about it on the doctor’s veranda that first night.”

“It didn’t matter. I’ve heard it since, in different ways. Now that I’m used to it I ... I might have got over it if it hadn’t been for Camilla. Tony,” her voice caught but her tones were fairly steady, “there’s no one else at all that I can speak to about this. I ... I happen to know that Andrew is still in love with her.”

He looked distressed but not shocked. “Don’t believe Camilla. And for pity’s sake don’t keep reminding yourself that Andrew’s career always comes first with him. I’ll guarantee that if he had to choose between you and promotion, his job wouldn’t get a look in.”

It sounded a bit hollow, even with Tony’s sincerity behind it, but Karen left it there. She couldn’t tell him that she had seen Andrew unmasked and in pain, that close to him Camilla’s scarf had lain where he had dropped it, that the scarf had disappeared and she had forced herself to look for it in his bedroom. And that she had found it tacked into the top drawer of his dressing chest along with the photograph which had once stood on top. Her second examination of the figures in the photograph had shown her people she now knew; the Rawlings, Mr. Bingham and Camilla Marchant standing close to Andrew. Hating herself for snooping, hating Andrew for what he had done to her, she had carefully replaced things as she had found them and crept away.

“Will you stay and have lunch with me?” she asked.

“I hadn’t better,” he said regretfully, standing up. “I’d like to invite you out fishing this afternoon for a breath of air, but I hadn’t better do that, either.” He picked up his papers, tapped them. “My alibi for calling while Andrew’s away; they can easily wait till Monday morning at the office. I may see you this evening—there’s a general invitation to the McLennans.”

She nodded. “Goodbye, Tony. Thanks for coming.” Presently she had a salad and some fruit, and after it she rested in the oppressive heat of the veranda. Insects droned monotonously, the sinister whispering still came from the waves and an occasional parakeet squawked among the trees, but otherwise the whole island seemed comatose. There was not even a lazy laugh from the servants in the vicinity.

Then, soon after three, people began drifting past the house towards the beach. Karen sat up and was hailed.

“Come on down,” Mrs. Coppard called. “We’re bathing!”

Karen waved that she would follow, but she decided she hadn’t better wet the foot today. She got into a lime-colored sun frock, found her dark glasses and strolled out with scarcely a limp to join a couple who were also on their way to the sea. Rita and Clive Vaughan were close behind, and Karen found herself speculating upon their marriage; but it was too hot to draw conclusions.

She lay on sand under a tree, and when others tried to persuade her to bathe she said she might go down later; she felt too slack at the moment. Some took a dip, others lounged and talked desultorily, and by four o’clock they were pouring tea and eating a variety of little cakes culled from various homes.

Rita, as usual, ate nothing. She sat next to Karen, smoking and looking enigmatic as she talked in low tones.

The theme of her monologue was: “Do I get tired of traipsing down here every weekend with this bunch! Clive laps it up, and I feel as if one day I’ll do something shocking, just to shake him. Maybe I’ll do more than shake him up.”

She asked, “Why don’t we go for another trip on Monday, Karen? When there are two of you, you can’t do anything. Alone, one has to be so careful.”

“I’ll let you know. Why don’t you find a hobby, or something?”

“I’ve got one, honey.” She winked. “You’d be surprised.”

“Not telling anyone?”

“Who would I tell—the husband? Clive thinks I should take an interest in his trees or do embroidery.” She laughed. “What do you think of this play suit?”

The shorts were cream, the top was striped green and cream and red. “Nifty,” Karen commented. “They don’t sell them here. Did you make it?”

“No.” But Rita liked mysteries, even unimportant ones, and she said no more about the gay suit. “What about sloping off with me now? Anything is better than sitting with this deadly crew.” Then she looked up the beach. “No dice. Here comes your spouse.”

He came at a long leisurely stride through the sand. He wore trunks and a tropical shirt, looked bronzed and smiling as he approached.

“Run and greet him, Karen,” teased Mrs. Coppard. “He’s been away all day. We shan’t mind.”

Karen shook her head and smiled, conscious that they would place their own construction on the sudden color in her face. Andrew dropped down at her side; calmly, still smiling, he lightly kissed her temple.

“Sorry I couldn’t get back earlier,” he said. “The Old Man gave up his siesta to talk taxes, so I hadn’t much option but to stay. Had a bathe yet?”

“No. You go ahead.”

“I’m in no hurry. I’ll wait for you.”

“Some tea, Andrew?” asked Mrs. Coppard. “The cake tin is just there, to your right.”

“Thanks.” He took the cup, turned to Clive Vaughan. “The Governor says the district officer on Malu is anxious to get a new acreage under forestry. They’ve cleared and are afraid of the jungle creeping up if it isn’t planted soon. I think Sir Wallace will ask you to go over there for three months.”

“How charming,” said Rita sweetly. “Three white men and one white woman. You’ll like that, Clive. What is she like—the wife of the district officer?”

It was Andrew who answered, pleasantly but with a little iron in his tones. “She’s motherly—not your type, Rita. There’s a very good visitors’ house—I’ve stayed in it myself—and Malu is well known as a rest center for various groups of islands in the South Seas. The white population is small, but it changes constantly. You might find it interesting.”

“I doubt it,” said Rita. “I shan’t put it to the test.”

Clive said nothing. Andrew shrugged. “Thought I’d prepare you so that you’ll have your answer ready when you’re asked about it.” A pause, then: “These tarts are delicious. Who made them?”

“My wife,” said Mr. Rawling, awakening suddenly.

“You should have brought down some of the large fruit cake, Karen,” Andrew said. “I’ll bet even Mrs. Rawling would have complimented you on it.”

Karen hugged her knees more tightly, and said casually, “It’s not that good. I’m no paragon. Was it as hot in the hills as it is here?”

“Not quite, but there was a thick haze over most of the road. We need a wind.” He shed the shirt. “Come on, let’s take a dip.”

“I won’t bother. I’m not wearing a swim suit.”

Fleetingly he met her glance. Probably for the benefit of their companions he said, with a wink, “You’re giving in to the climate, my sweet. Before you’ve been here a month I’ll have you swimming before breakfast every day. Help yourself to a cigarette from the pack in my shirt pocket. I won’t be long.”

Karen lay back again. She felt Rita lean over and search the shirt for cigarettes, heard her say softly, “If you agree to go to Malu, Clive, don’t expect me to be here when you come back. No offence, darling, but I’m not going with you, and I’m not going to grass-widow it here till you return. If I don’t start getting something out of life pretty soon I’ll go lunatic.”

It seemed that Clive still felt too wretched to speak, for a silence followed. Others went down for a final swim, Rita said a brief goodbye and cleared off, and Clive no doubt followed her. When Karen opened her eyes she was alone and Andrew was coming up the beach, glistening from his swim. She stood up, automatically handing him a towel. “Been with the gang all day?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Molly came in for tea this morning. I had lunch alone and rested till about three.”

“Been lonely at all?”

“No. Are we still going to the Prichards’ cottage tomorrow?”

“That’s how I left it. Not apprehensive about it, are you?”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

He flung the rolled towel round his neck, took her wrist and said, “Sit down again—they’ve all gone and it’s even a bit cooler. Did you have a cigarette?”

“I didn’t want one.” She moved slightly away from him, leaned back on her hands. “If the packet’s sandy it’s because Rita handled it.”

“Rita?” He shook his head and selected a cigarette. “She becomes more of a pain in the neck every day. Clive’s a darned good forestry man and we could use him all over the islands, but he’s not certain of his wife, so he won’t move. Rita must have known before she married him that his way of life would be as it is.”

“And he must have known the sort of woman he was taking on,” Karen pointed out. “It cuts both ways. They’re not happy together, but I think they’d be less happy apart.

He smiled. “A psychological study, and all for nothing. Rita’s a hard case and she needs firmer handling than Clive can manage. They’ll have to work it out themselves.” He blew smoke, and without changing the conversational tone asked “What worries you particularly about tomorrow?

“I’m afraid I don’t feel up to Lady Prichard.”

“She’s not so frightening, and we’ll be there only a few hours—for lunch and tea. They’ve got some missionary people coming for dinner at the Residency tomorrow night, so we shall be home soon after six. He paused, looked out towards the reef as he went on, “Marcia doesn’t really like other women, but she told me today that she felt you and she would get along well. For your information it’s a great privilege for a couple to be invited out to Hill Lodge Bingham and I have been there, but so far no wives.”

She watched sand squelching through the fingers upon which she leaned. “What the Governor and his wife think of you is terribly important to you, isn’t it.

“Not to me personally. I like the Old Man for himself, of course—most of us do—but what he and Marcia think of me is important only to my future with the service.” Quietly he reiterated, “Our future.”

She found no answer to that. “I think I will have a cigarette,” she said.

She hadn’t thought of him lighting it between his own lips and placing it between hers. Accepting it was like a sort of surrender, a forced surrender whose bitter sweetness helped her a little because she so badly wanted to yield to him. She smoked without speaking, and when the cigarette was half consumed she let him take it and press it into the sand. He shouldered into his shirt, gave her a hand and pulled her to her feet. She was sure that as they plodded through the white sand he would place an arm across her shoulder; but he didn’t. Because there was no audience? Karen ignored the ache in her heart as she ignored the soreness of her foot.

In the living room he said, “I’ll take a shower and get dressed. It’s the McLennans’ tonight, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “Do I dress up?”

“No—just a pretty frock.” His smile at her was almost gentle. “You always look lovely—even when you’re in crumpled pyjamas and your hair is mussed as it was this morning. I didn’t want to leave you—do you know that?” And on a taunting note, “You’re scared to stop fighting and trust me. Heaven knows what you expect to happen—but don’t you think it might be ... interesting, to say the least?”

She smiled faintly. “I’m sure you’d be most surprised if I replied to that.”

“Gratified, anyway,” he said tersely. “No go? All right. Let’s decide to have a good day tomorrow—not because of the Prichards or promotion or anything else, but simply because of you and me.” Grimly mocking, he added, “My problem child!”

She could have given in then; he looked so much as he had looked in England. There was the provocative glint in the grey eyes, the tolerant humor in his mouth, the slight shrug of a sardonic man softened up, and liking it. But ... he had married her without love, and for that she could never forgive him.

She said evenly, “You’d better go. I’ll be needing the bath as soon as you’re through.”

He did not hurry. Had he moved more quickly his glance might not have caught the square of official white paper which lay beneath a chair, and Karen would have found it first. But he saw it, bent and picked it up, read the typewritten words.

“That’s odd,” he said, as if to himself. “This must have arrived at the office from Filfua this morning.” He looked at her. “How did it get here?”

She went cold. “I ... I don’t know. I’ve never seen it before.”

“It’s about a new copra barge ...” He broke off, demanded sharply, “Has Tony been here?”

She hesitated, and was sunk. “He was here just before lunch for a few minutes. He ... he brought some papers for you to...”

“He brought nothing for me. This could have waited. He flicked at the sheet he was holding. “He came down here to see you and carried an armful of official stuff as a cover, in case he should meet someone on the way or find a friend here. He came purposely while I was out, to see you!”

She lifted her chin. “Why shouldn’t he call? Isn’t he your friend? If he has to pretend he’s coming on business it’s because you’re too unpredictable for him to be honest.”

“He came because he knew I was well out of the way!”

“What of it?” she threw at him. “He knows I need a friend more than you do!”

The instant the words were out she knew their folly. He went taut and glittering, spoke with deadly quietness. “You didn’t even hint that he’d been here; you weren’t going to tell me. You’re falling for Tony, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. Not for the man he is, but for what he seems to be as far as you’re concerned. He’s soft and sympathetic. He thinks you’re too sweet and vulnerable to face life with me. He wouldn’t say as much—Tony’s not such a fool—but that’s what he implies, isn’t it?”

“Tony’s always been loyal to you—always.”

“I’m sure of that,” Andrew said in those dangerous tones, “just as you’re loyal now, to Tony. Well, it’s just too bad that you’ve met him too late!”

“You wanted us to be friends—you said so.”

“Is that your idea of friendliness?” he said, with a twist of his lips that looked like contempt. “Have you wept all over him? Just how far has it gone?”

Karen was white and trembling. “How can you speak like that? Even if you don’t trust me, you do know Tony.”

“I know that no one is quite responsible for what he does when he goes crazy over a woman. The smallest encouragement from you would make him forget everything—is loyalties, career, the whole shoot. The one thing missing from Tony’s life is a woman to dote upon.”

“You’ve got the whole thing quite wrong. Even if I were the ... the kind of woman to appeal to him Tony wouldn’t...”

“Allow me to know slightly more about men than you do.” In clipped tones he stated, “I’ve fought to keep our ridiculous situation an absolute secret, and I mean to go on that way. I won’t have Tony or anyone else regarding me as a cynical bridegroom and you as the pitiful victim. When I threatened to have Tony Horwell thrown out of Nemaka if you started confiding in him I meant every word. He’ll leave on Monday!”

“But ... but, Andrew,” she said, aghast, “you can’t do that; it would hurt him dreadfully. And why should you blame Tony for my weakness?”

“Did you invite him here this morning?”

“No, but...”

“When did you two first get together for these so-called friendly talks?”

“At no time when you weren’t in the house.”

His nostrils thin and pale, his lips scarcely moving, he said incredulously, “You actually talked about me to Tony while I was only a few yards away? I don’t know how you dared! Well, you’ve finished his career on the Leaman Islands. I’ll get him away early on Monday if it costs a year’s salary.”

From somewhere Karen drew a little courage. Standing very straight with her head lifted she answered, “You can book two seats on that plane. If you kick out Tony, I’m going too. But before I go, I shall tell the Governor my reasons.”

Karen did not wait for a reply, and he did not try to detain her. Oblivious of the trembling of her body and of acute reminders from the sole of her foot, she ran out into the garden and plunged through the orchard footpath. She stopped in the eerie greenness and leaned against a festooned mango trunk. Despair was a deadening weight, in her chest.

CHAPTER SIX

As might have been expected, Hill Lodge was by no means a cottage. It was Marcia’s whim to play down what was really a modern luxurious bungalow in a wild and beautiful setting. The low white house sat on a wide shelf of hillside against a background of indigenous fruit and nut trees. Its garden was unconfined, a natural chaos of boulders with plants both wild and cultivated growing among them and paths winding right through it and down over the slopes to the sea, which was about four hundred yards away. Almost half the house was a vast lounge with windows and doors front and back. A small dining room with an adjoining kitchen, two bathrooms and two airy bedrooms completed a dwelling that any woman compelled to live in the tropics would dote upon.

The Prichards used the house about two weekends each month. Whenever a V.I.P. from England came to the Leamans he was given the use of Hill Lodge, and for that reason the place was kept in flawless condition. The furniture, Lady Prichard was wont to explain, was only ten years old and had been chosen for comfort and cheerfulness. Rather a contrast to the walnut, mahogany and tapestries at the Residency, and therefore a real change and most restful.

It was a dream house in a dream setting; Karen had to admit that. Andrew had told her very little on the way. A gesture and: “This is one of our coffee plantations—seven years old.” Or: “The river flooded part of the island last year during the rains.”

From the moment they had met for breakfast there had been a wordless pact between them which Andrew, narrow-eyed though he was, might have summed up as ‘casual does it’. They had set out at ten, he tall and vital in linen slacks and a white shirt and she in pink and white. He drove among palms and wild orange trees, among poinsettias, hibiscus and lantana that grew flagrantly as weeds along the edges of the rice and tea gardens. Women in bright sarongs waved as they passed, and giggled shyly; their men bowed. Karen wondered what it was like to be so free and uninhibited; their polite interest would have warmed her heart, had she felt she had a heart left to be warmed. She sat beside Andrew, achingly aware of him as a vibrant, magnetic man who could love as passionately as he could denounce. It was a relief to arrive at their destination.

Sir Wallace and Lady Prichard came from the wide paved terrace to greet them. Sir Wallace looked bluff and sporty, his wife appeared dainty and self-contained, in flowered print.

“Well, this is splendid,” she said, giving a hand to each of them. “It was so hazy here this morning that we were afraid you might have rain in Government Town. Wallace says it feels like rain, but I don’t think so. Do you, Andrew?”

“It does a bit, and it was cloudy last night.” He looked about him and down at the distant, misty blue of the sea. “This place is the most restful I know. How are you feeling Sir Wallace?”

“Very fit. No talk of work today, Andrew. Marcia forbids it.”

Lady Prichard smiled charmingly and led the way into the covered terrace. “We have a confirmation service for the islanders this evening and then a long discussion with some missionaries. Let’s have a peaceful day to prepare for it. Sit there, Karen, my dear. You look so lovely and fresh.”

Karen felt stale and benighted, but she smiled brightly. “It’s cooler here, and what a glorious spot it is!”

“After you’ve had some refreshment I’ll show you our garden,” said the Governor’s wife. “When we first came out here there were only wild things growing among the crags, but during the first year I bought plants from the government nursery, and now you’ll find ageratums and pelargoniums and dwarf azaleas among the rock plants. I did plant some geraniums, just for fun, but they grew to tree size within two years and had to be scrapped. Are you fond of gardening, Karen?”

“Oh, yes. I did all the spring and autumn work in our garden at home in Cornwall.”

“Here, of course,” in mild reproof, “one gardens only with one’s mind—a gardener does the work. Ah, thank you,” as a servant placed a tray on the low mosaic table. “What would you like, Karen? Tea or an iced fruit drink? And you, Andrew?”

Karen relaxed slightly. The breeze was good, and the dead weight of despondency which had kept her awake last night had found its level; it no longer dragged. When she had finished her drink she walked with Marcia Prichard among the exotic plants and rocks. The older woman explained everything, showed garden seats in arbors, a well-preserved summer-house where someone famous had painted her portrait.

They had been alone for more than half an hour when Lady Prichard said pleasantly, “Before we go back there’s something I have to mention to you, Karen. Just before Sir Wallace and I left Government Town yesterday morning I received a letter by messenger. It wasn’t scurrilous, or I’d have destroyed it and forgotten it. It simply said that you have come to know those men who are trying to salvage a ship off the coast. The writer thought I should be told about it, so that I could warn you that ... well, that it’s not entirely discreet for you to speak to such people when you are out driving.”

Karen looked at her, surprised but singularly unmoved. “I met two of those men just once, by accident, and I wasn’t alone.”

“It’s not important, my dear. I thought it my duty to let you know that you were seen—merely to point the fact of your position here.”

“What sort of position is it—when some other government wife can snoop and report as if I were official property?

“It wasn’t a government wife, I’m glad to say. The writer thought it over very carefully before she wrote to me; it was a most fair and objective letter.”

“It was still snooping. I don’t even want to know the name of the writer.”

A tiny frown creased the older woman’s forehead. “There was no ill intent, I assure you, Karen. I told you only for your own good, and I certainly won’t mention a word of it to Andrew, or even to the Governor.” She paused. “It is only right that you should know the name of the woman who wrote to me. She’s not much older than you are—the shipping agent’s daughter, Camilla Marchant.”

Karen had half expected it. “I think we may leave it there, Lady Prichard. If I ever see any of those men again it will be accidentally, as it was before.”

As they moved on she realized that in keeping the letter to herself and handing out a private warning, Lady Prichard had been acting with understanding and generosity. The trouble was, Karen felt herself in no condition to handle intrigue and disguised viciousness. Automatically she murmured an apology, received a warm smile in acknowledgement. She remembered reading somewhere that never, at one time, is everyone against us. Now it seemed as though Lady Prichard were more than willing to become a friend and ally—possibly for Andrew’s sake, but one could understand that.

Karen sighed; her head ached, and as a result of the rough walking her foot was beginning to play up.

The four of them lunched on the terrace, and for an hour afterwards Karen rested on a chaise in the spare bedroom; there had been the choice between a rest and going for a tramp with Andrew, and he himself had made the decision. He had gone off alone, striding along as if the temperature were down in the sixties.

When they all met for tea the whole sky had hazed, and Andrew reported rain in the air near the sea.

“I think we should start back almost at once,” he said. “‘Even with only a mist it may take nearly two hours.”

The Governor smiled. “Not if you’re driving. We’ll leave at exactly five. That will give us ample time. It’s too warm to do anything in a hurry. Besides, even if it rains, it will be some time before the road deteriorates.”

“Unless there are cloudbursts.”

The Governor looked up at the thick grey sky. “Up here you can never distinguish clouds from heavy haze.”

As if to make him entirely clear on the point a sudden zigzag of lightning split the grey. Lady Prichard stood up at once.

“I know I should be ashamed of it, but I’m nervous of thunderstorms. Wallace, I’m going indoors, and I shall stay there till this one is over.”

Andrew was swiftly helping a servant to drag the garden furniture into cover. “I think we’d better leave, Marcia,” he said as she passed him. “There’ll be no danger in the car.”

She shook her head, almost abruptly. “I don’t mind rain, but I refuse to drive in thunder and lightning—too unnerving altogether. Wallace, please ask someone to close the shutters of the bedroom windows. I’ll lie down till it’s over.”

This, it seemed, was Lady Prichard’s one weakness. She could entertain Royalty, juggle with officials and their wives, run numerous welfare organizations and remain alert and watchful in any emergency after more ordinary mortals had succumbed to fatigue. But she had a thing about storms; a decided touch of humanity.

The rain fell as if a tropical river were overflowing from the sky. There were great thick sheets of it battering at the roof and coursing down to wash over the terrace and garden. Thunder reverberated through the hills and lightning shot through the grey wall like flames. Karen watched it, fascinatedly, from the living room. Sir Wallace, at her side, shook his head resignedly.

“We wouldn’t have had time to get far, and we’d certainly have had to turn back, for Marcia’s sake. She wouldn’t have had hysterics, or anything like that, but if she were out in this she’d feel really ill for some time after it.”

“Do you think I should go to her?” Karen asked.

“She’s best left alone, thank you, my dear.” He smiled. “She shuts out the lightning, makes herself comfortable and tells herself that she’s bearing her little cross.”

“Very sensible too,” commented Andrew. “But I wish we’d got about halfway, past the down-gradient hairpin bends. Even if this finishes within the next hour we’ll have to go carefully, and you won’t get back in time for your duties this evening.”

“It’s a pity, but Bingham will have to handle things. If it’s raining down there everyone will know why we’re held up. It’s a good thing you’re with us, Andrew; otherwise they’d organize a rescue convoy!” He looked at Karen. “You don’t mind this?”

“It’s rather terrifying, but I’ve never seen it before.”

He laughed. “Do or die. Is that how you always meet catastrophes? It must be a great help.”

“It’s not always a help,” Andrew said evenly. “It can make one reckless.”

“Perhaps.” The Governor’s voice was kind and teasing. “Karen was either reckless or very much in love when she married you, Andrew. I’d like to think it was some of both. You need an adventurous woman.”

“If he needs a woman at all,” said Karen lightly.

Her glance slid past Andrew’s, but she knew he was smiling one of those aloof, watchful smiles he used for hiding whatever he felt. Would it ever be possible to penetrate deep below that armor of experience and cynicism? Would she ever be able to ignore that camera-like mind of his? It seemed as if there could never be a time in which she could accept philosophically the void in their relationship.

A crescendo of thunder that shook the house put an end to conversation. Sir Wallace tried to read, Karen sat facing the window, not caring much if they didn’t get away till midnight. A servant came in to ask whether dinner would be needed. Everything had been packed away, as ordered by Her Excellency.

Sir Wallace shrugged uncertainly. “What do you think, Andrew?”

“Bread and butter and a few hard-boiled eggs. We’ll take them with us.”

The servant withdrew, but Andrew did not settle. He remained at the window, staring over the rain and wind-lashed terrace into a grey nothingness. It darkened completely and lamps were brought. Thunder and lightning eased a little but did not cease, and the rain continued to fall with its own monotonous roar. Sir Wallace went from the room, and Andrew said quietly, “You put on a good act, but you’re still tense. Being scared of tropical storms is nothing to be ashamed of.”

She answered, low-toned, “It’s possible that I feel I have to prove I’m not the coward you think I am—physically, anyway.”

“Well, you’ve made your point, if it helps at all,” he said wryly, “it was something I remembered from your early days that made me feel you’d be able to handle the hazards of this part of the world. You must have been about eight when you plunged into the river to save a puppy from drowning.”

She looked down at her locked fingers. “It was a ridiculous effort. The puppy could swim better than I. I didn’t know you’d heard about it.”

“The whole village knew, and I remembered it the moment I saw you again, grown-up and dreamy-eyed. You can’t be so very different from that little girl today. If you start off with that delightfully foolish sort of courage you never lose it. I told myself,” non-committally, “that you’d be a gay and spirited companion, that you’d mature beautifully.”

Her throat was locked. He had expected too much in return for the bestowal of his name and government rank. He was looking at her, and she managed a reply.

“I’m well aware that I’ve disappointed you, but I see now that it was inevitable. I’m far more sorry than you are.” He drew in his breath sharply, but before he could retort the Governor returned.

“I’ve been talking to Marcia,” he said, quite unaware of the electricity in the atmosphere. “We’re staying the night, Andrew, all four of us. Nothing else for it, really.”

Andrew turned towards him suddenly. “It’s wise for you and Marcia to stay, but Karen and I should try to get through. This is bound to ease off within the next few hours, and I’ll send a car for you early in the morning.”

“But why go through the storm when it’s not necessary? They won’t expect any of us in Government Town. You can be sure they’re getting this as well. It’s lasting too long for a local storm.”

Andrew let a moment elapse. Then he said, “Karen can stay with you, and I’ll go alone.”

“But why, my dear fellow? You’d probably get stranded at one of the rivers and have to spend the night there, cold and drenched. Far better to remain here and do the trip in daylight. If the rain stops soon the rivers will be down again by morning.” He turned concernedly to Karen. “You mustn’t let him go, my dear. It would be most dangerous!”

A horrid dryness in her throat, Karen said. “I’ll go with him, Sir Wallace.”

The Governor stared quite militantly at Andrew. “There! You’ve frightened the child. I wouldn’t dream of letting her go, and I won’t keep her here alone, worrying herself silly about you. You’re not a bachelor now, you know. Karen has a right to keep you here.”

As Andrew looked at them both across the room, a muscle twitched in his jaw. “We’ll decide a bit later. This sure is a hell of a spot in the rain!”

Karen opened a book, but was acutely aware of him. He was like something caged, and the miracle was that Sir Wallace only saw him as an impatient, strong-minded man who was showing a lack of thought for his young wife. The older man was really jolted and bewildered, and Andrew was now behaving right out of character. Was it possible that in this instance he didn’t care what the Governor thought?

The lightning had almost ceased, and soon Lady Prichard came blinking into the lamplight. Her presence was like a cool zephyr in an overheated room.

“Well, we seem to be stranded,” she said serenely, “so let’s make the best of it. I’ve seen the servants and they’re preparing a light supper. We’ve had a long day in great heat, and I think we should all go to bed early, so that we can start away at dawn, if it’s possible. Karen, you look tired, and I don’t wonder. Go and have a nice cool wash, my dear, and when you come back we’ll have a drink. We always keep a little Dutch courage in stock!”

Karen stood up, and Sir Wallace remarked dourly, “Andrew has been talking of going off on his own. What do you make of that?”

His wife laughed and lifted an eyebrow. “A little coolness between Andrew and Karen? Don’t worry, it won’t last. Oh, Karen, I’ve told one of the boys to make up the beds in the spare room, but you might make sure the sheets are quite dry. If they’re not, there’s plenty of heat in the kitchen. There are spare pyjamas and so on in the top drawer of the chest in your room, and several new toothbrushes in the bathroom. Really, we’re very well prepared.”

Karen smiled her thanks and went out. She washed and used a lipstick, walked along to the end bedroom, turned up the lamp and automatically felt the sheets. She stood back against the wall, pressed a hand to her forehead, pushed back her hair.

She waited for some time, hardly knowing what she hoped for or expected. Andrew did not come and finally she turned down the lamp and went back to the lounge.

The three of them were there, taking a drink, and Lady Prichard seemed to have taken charge of the situation, though Andrew looked very cool and detached from it all. As her blue-green glance met his she saw, with a shock, that in an angry fashion he had begun to enjoy the situation. Almost he looked as though this were some revenge for ... for her support of Tony? He’d known she was waiting along there in the bedroom, that she had been going to plead with him to do something. “The deuce I will,” his glance said; “you’re my wife and I’m damned if I’ll help you wriggle out of a perfectly normal domestic situation.” The evening was endless, overcharged but shot through with the clear common sense of Marcia Prichard. At ten the older woman went to the window.

“It’s still raining, but the storm has paused. I think we shall be able to go to sleep now.” She hadn’t yawned, but she tapped her lips. “Goodnight, you two. I’m afraid we’ll have to take this lamp—ours has run dry. Goodnight, again.”

Karen moved first along the passage. She said goodnight to Sir Wallace and went into the end bedroom. Andrew came in and closed the door. The lamp was sputtering and quickly, nervously, she pulled in the french window to reduce the draught. The lamp still flickered.

“This one is almost empty too,” said Andrew drily. “Shall I rouse the servants for paraffin?”

“What’s got into you?” she asked in low tones. “Haven’t you been sarcastic enough this evening?”

“I didn’t create the storm, little one.”

“You created the atmosphere. I can’t bear any more of it.”

“That’s a step in the right direction. Let me see,” very calmly, “how would Tony handle this? But then he’d never get into this kind of nightmare, would he? You know,” as he sank down into an upholstered wicker chair, “you’ve shown me a side of Tony I wasn’t aware existed. He’s not highly colored or forceful, and I don’t believe he’s ever been drawn to a woman before.”

“He’s not drawn to one now!”

He slipped his hands behind his head, looking infuriatingly comfortable but steely-eyed as he studied her through half-closed lids. “Oh, yes, he is, but he wouldn’t do anything about it without a whole lot of encouragement.” A pause. “He’s the type you really wanted, isn’t he? He wouldn’t frighten you—loom like a threat every night—you feel you could handle Tony, don’t you? Since you’ve known him you’ve compared us; kind, gentle, accommodating Tony and ... me. A darned shame you couldn’t come here and meet him first, without being tied to me.”

“I’m not attracted to Tony in that way.”

“Maybe it’s a bit soon for that, but it wouldn’t take long. Unhappy wife, compassionate friend, too much heat and not much to do. It’s happening all the time out in these places. But it’s not going to happen to you.”

“I could have told you that!”

His tone altered slightly. “While we’re on the subject, there’s a couple of things I want to know. Why did you feel guilty about his coming to the house yesterday?”

“Please, Andrew,” she said entreatingly.

“It’s something I have to know.”

“Well, it wasn’t guilt. I realized that you’ve changed towards Tony and that it was my fault. I kept quiet about his call because I didn’t want to cause any more trouble.”

“I can’t accept that, but let it pass. There’s something else which is far more fundamental.” He didn’t seem to move, but a stiffness had come into his posture. “When you said that if Tony were to leave tomorrow you’d go with him you really meant it, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but...”

His lean face seemed actually to have lost color as he leaned forward to interrupt her. His voice was just a little thick. “You’d have done that to me, if you could?”

She was sitting well away from him, on the foot of the bed nearest the window and not for from the lamp, and as she looked down at the rug she appeared thinner and more withdrawn. Tension flattened her tones.

“We’ve both realized our marriage was a mistake, and the sooner I go the fainter the impression it will leave. Please,” very hurried, as he made a swift movement, “it’s time I said this, and you must listen. You know how it was in Cornwall. A perfect summer, I was feeling restless and ... and romantic, and then the overpowering Master of Welhayes came from the South Seas and actually noticed me. I was dazzled, I seemed to lose my identity. I ... I wasn’t myself again till the day we arrived in Nemaka.”

“I know all that,” he said in clipped tones. “I knew it before you did, but till we got here I had no doubts about you. You say you woke up on the day we got here, but you didn’t, my child. You’re not awake yet.”

“Andrew, you’ve got to give me credit for knowing at least a little about myself. If I’d been in my right mind in England I’d never have married you; I’d have known I couldn’t make a man like you happy. I’m more normal now and I can see it’s all been a ghastly mistake. I’m not the woman you want...”

He was on his feet. “You’re the woman I’ve got, and I’m making no changes! You can appeal to me for Tony, or for anyone else, but not for your own freedom. I’ll never give you that.” He was breathing heavily as he added, “You’re accepted here in Nemaka, and even Marcia Prichard has shown today that she actually likes you for your own sake, and not mine. While you were in the room, earlier on, she called me cruel for even thinking of going off and leaving you here to worry about what might happen to me on the road. Funny, isn’t it?” he ended savagely. “Really funny!”

She moistened her lips and said desperately, “What the Prichards think of you is all that matters—the Prichards and the other officials. In front of them I’m darling and my sweet, I’m teased and tantalized, allowed little liberties. You drop a kiss now and then, just to show what normal newlyweds we are; every single thing you do in front of others is done with calculation and an eye to the future. You don’t want a wife, Andrew. You want some mechanical creature that you can switch on, knowing exactly how it will respond.” Her voice cracked. “Well, I’m not a machine, and I can’t react like one.”

He thrust his hands into his pockets. “Well spoken,” he said grimly, “but way off the beam. I’ve noticed that whenever we argue—and heaven knows it’s most of the time, except when we can’t bear the sight of each other!—you insist on talking of my future. It’s never ours. From the very beginning you’ve thought of yourself as someone separate, someone ill-used and untouchable. You’ve listened to gossip, and because I won’t stoop to refuting it you’ve even embroidered it in your own imagination.”

“I’m quite sure,” she flashed, “that if you could have denied certain things, you would have. You’ve just said that sometimes you can’t bear the sight of me...”

“Ah!” His glance narrowed in the half-darkness and there was a hint of malice in the furious smile. “I thought that might hurt a bit. You like to feel that’s your prerogative, don’t you? Well, there have been times when I’ve disliked you too. Not hated, mind you—never that—because I’ve realized a few things and made allowances, and I could never hate you, anyway. But occasionally I’ve wondered whether you’ll ever grow up, whether I’ll have to live with a scared adolescent for the rest of my life!”

Karen was shaking; she felt too weak even to stand, let alone get herself out of the room. She said unsteadily, “I’ve always known I couldn’t really fight you. You’re too experienced, too clever. And if you weren’t so fanatically ambitious you’d see this ... this marriage could be quite a small thing that you could leave behind. If it were annulled you could live it down in no time. You could marry the woman you ... any woman you wanted, and still get away with it. You’re shrewd and powerful enough for that.”

“Stop being melodramatic. I’ve had enough.”

The lamp chose that moment to fade into a thin blue line and flicker out. Instantly Karen was sharply aware of the rain beating among the rocks and pouring from the edge of the thick thatch. The veranda outside was covered, but the rain had swept in, varnishing the whole surface. She could see the flagstones through the french window, and she thought, bleakly, how cool it would be out there in the darkness. She would like to drift out into the rain, into oblivion. Her head drooped, and her hands came up to cover her damp face.

He saw the movement, hesitated with a tight look about his mouth, and then opened the door about a foot, to let in more air.

“Take off your frock and lie down,” he said curtly. “Go on, you need the rest.”

“Please leave me alone.”

“Do as I say, Karen! You’re exhausted and wound up. If you don’t get some sleep you’ll feel like death in the morning.”

She lifted her head and looked at his angular face in the darkness. ‘You mean I’ll look like death, don’t you, and that wouldn’t do at all. If Marcia saw that I...”

It happened suddenly but inevitably. In one stride he had lifted her and crushed her tight against him. His mouth found hers, forced back her head so that her neck hurt while his fingers gripped into her shoulder. She went a little limp and he half released her. But that wasn’t the end of it. He kissed her throat and the curve of her neck, returned with raging insistence to her lips, before he let her go.

“You went a scrap too far at the wrong end of the day,” he said indistinctly. “I’ve every right in the world to kiss you like that—and don’t forget it!” He walked out into the veranda and the door clicked shut behind him.

Karen stood where he had left her, gulping deep breaths. It was a long time before she managed to drag off her frock and half lie on the bed, with her head on the pillow and her feet on the floor. An awkward, painful position, but she was glad; it made thinking more difficult.

An hour passed. She could hear the ticking of her wrist-watch but hadn’t the energy or the will to remove it. The rain eased, and at last, utterly spent, she slept.

She awoke to bright sunshine and the trilling of birds in the garden. Still half dressed, she was lying comfortably between sheets with a blanket up to her shoulders. Memory flooded back and desolation was a raw pain in her throat. She got up, saw that her frock had been put on a hanger and that her shoes stood tidily near the cupboard, where he had put them after taking them off. He must have been most careful not to rouse her.

Karen could have wept, but she daren’t.

Sunday’s storms were a five-minute wonder. By Monday afternoon all repair work was under way and when evening came there were other things in the air, such as Mrs. Rawling’s proposed birthday party and the islanders’ fishing festival, which seemed to turn up more and more often each year.

During the next few days Karen did very little. She drove up to the shops, had tea with Molly Mears and attended a school committee meeting at Lady Prichard’s request, but she spent most of her time either reading or sewing. An islander came with tiles and a bag of tools to repair the bathroom walls, and a shopkeeper brought bales of furnishing fabrics and a tape measure; he had been instructed by the tuan that the mem would permit him to take measurements and herself choose the curtaining material. The curtains, he assured her, would be ready for hanging by the end of the week.

She heard nothing about Tony, which meant that he was carrying on his duties and way of life as usual. Rita Vaughan called in one day at about noon. She looked as brittle as Karen felt, and Karen would have given a good deal to be free of the woman. She wanted to lose some of her own tenseness.

Rita moved about the room, fingered Karen’s dress material, unnecessarily straightened a bowl of flowers. Her cup of tea she left standing, to gather flies and go cold.

“I suppose you’ve heard about the grubby trick that’s been played on the Salamander seekers?” she said at last. “Ben Brooke is most fed up.”

“I haven’t heard. What happened?”

“He had a two months’ permit. It expires in about a week, so he applied for an extension. There’s no reason why it shouldn’t be granted—he’s employed a few Nemakans and spent money in the shops—but the Governor has told him he must give up and get out.”

“There’s probably an official reason for it.”

Rita jerked her narrow shoulders. “Oh, there is. Nothing unconstitutional in the Leaman Islands! If Ben could have produced even the tiniest bit of evidence that he was on the track of the wreck he could have stayed. He sent a few pots and things to the Council Offices, but your eagle-eyed husband spotted them for phonies.”

“But the man Brooke is a British subject, isn’t he? Can’t he stay as long as he likes?”

Rita give her an oblique glance. “He can stay without the permit, but what’s the good of that? He’s here to find the wreck.”

Karen shrugged. “It does seem that two months should be long enough to find some trace of the thing. That ship could have sunk almost anywhere among these islands.”

“I suppose so. But Ben wants to go on searching right here.”

Karen looked up from the collar she was tacking. “Why?”

Rita avoided the clear blue-green glance. “He thinks he’s on the track.” A pause. “Oh, all right, I’ll be frank. His ship belongs to a man who’s financing the project and if Ben can’t renew his permit he has to go straight back to Hong Kong. He doesn’t want to leave Nemaka just now.”

“Why?” Karen said again.

“Don’t stare. I know he’s a bit of a pirate, but he’s the only he-man who’s ever given me a second look. Just knowing that I can go down to his camp and get a mug of coffee and a good laugh has made life worth living just lately. I want him to stay.”

“Don’t be an idiot. The way he spoke to me, I could tell he doesn’t care a bean for women. He’s attractive, in a way, but unscrupulous and too bold. I know it’s no use appealing to you for Clive’s sake, but what about your own? And apart from every other consideration, chasing that kind of man is a dead loss. You know that.”

Rita tightened her reddened lips. ‘Yes, I know it, but I just have to get some excitement or I’ll go crazy. You don’t know what it’s like to have a husband who stares at you each evening like a wounded dumb animal and won’t even round on you when you tell him just what you think of him!” She swallowed on the fury which must have been building up in her for some time. “I’m not infatuated with Captain Kidd. I’m simply using his presence here to ... to get me over the worst patch I’ve struck so far.”

“Rita, sit down.” Karen dropped her needlework to the floor. “Look ... some time this Brooke man has to leave Nemaka, and whenever it may be you’ll have to face it. You admit you’re not involved with him in any way, and that in itself is an admission that you think too much of Clive to go too far. You must behave sensibly.” She drew a deep breath and wondered how she was doing; not too well, she thought. “The man is an adventurer, and not a particularly honest one. Clive adores you; you don’t know how ... how terribly lucky you are in that.”

Rita was unaware of other feelings than her own. Bitterly she said, “If only I could rouse Clive—but it’s impossible. Captain Kidd doesn’t need any rousing. He’s a man.” She was standing again, giving a strained laugh. “I came here thinking I might get you to persuade Andrew to renew Ben’s permit.”

Karen bent to retrieve her needlework. “Don’t blame Andrew. He might have mentioned that those trophies were bogus, but it wouldn’t matter to him if the man went on seeking.”

“As a matter of fact I know you’re right,” said Rita sadly. “It was our Marcia who scotched everything. I got it out of John Bingham.”

“Lady Prichard?” said Karen.

“She walked into the Governor’s office as the permit came up for discussion. Seems she merely had to say that treasure-seeking wasn’t too good an example to the islanders and she understood the salvage crew weren’t nice men. That clinched it.”

The infallible Marcia, expelling potential harm to the community and Karen Eliot.

“So there’s no use railing against things, is there?

Karen said. “Why don’t you have people in for the evening, once in a while?”

Rita turned down the corners of her mouth. “Who would I have, except you? The others bore me silly. She gave a thin smile. “And you don’t approve of me, so I don’t really want you either. I’ll go, before you have me thrown out. ‘Bye.”

It did seem there was nothing one could do about Rita. Before an improvement could happen between herself and Clive she had to do something herself. But what? Karen felt she would never know.

The house was quiet, and it remained so for several days. When Andrew was at home he either read or went through papers, and at meal times he was cool and polite. The night at Hill Lodge was a tangle of barbed wire covering the wall which had previously existed between them.

During the early part of that week there was just one sticky moment. He came in for lunch, saw that she was helping Anai set the table and motioned to the boy to leave. When the inner door had closed he said, “I was looking through the surgery register at the hospital this morning and I found your name there with Wilmot’s signature alongside. I had to ask him what it meant.”

Karen rubbed a finger over the handle of a fork she held. “It was just a thorn in my foot. Nothing much.”

“It must have been painful before you went there, but you said nothing about it.”

“You probably saw the date. We were at the Residency the night before and you’d gone to Hill Lodge that morning.”

“When I met you on the beach that afternoon you still kept it to yourself.” He waited, but she said nothing. He spoke in deeper tones. “I actually had to ask Wilmot what had happened to my own wife. Ask him.”

“I’m sorry,” very quietly. “It was nothing serious.”

“I wasn’t to know that.” A pause. “I could probably have lifted the thorn out with tweezers before it set up a swelling, but you couldn’t come to me, of course. You’d rather suffer.”

“I didn’t want to go to the hospital. I begged Molly to have a go at it, but she wouldn’t. And how was I to know they’d put such a small thing on record? I’m terribly sorry you found out in that way.”

He moved towards the passage door. “I had to pretend it had slipped my mind—as if it would! Don’t put me in that position again, Karen. Ever.”

That was the end of the subject, but his unemotional handling of it indicated the aridity of their relationship. He wanted nothing from her but an outward show of wifeliness. A future which was too bleak to be contemplated.

CHAPTER SEVEN

In such a place as Nemaka it was natural to make a good deal of birthdays and other anniversaries. Apart from Christmas and Easter there were no standard public holidays, and though several feast days for the islanders had been declared, the European population found they had to make their own highlights. Some time during July the Governor would announce a long weekend known as the Queen’s Birthday, but from then until Christmas there was no respite from the five-day week with additional duty every other Saturday morning for most of the staff. So, inevitably, any birthday which fell during those months was used as an excuse for a large-scale celebration.

Mrs. Rawling, sprightly, thirty-eight and fond of organizing, was well liked among the government staff, and her first birthday party on the island, three years ago, had been such a success that as the day drew near each year she was cajoled and wheedled into repeating the effort. Being Cath Rawling, she attempted something bigger and better each time, and this year she proposed to arrange a whole Saturday on the north coast of the island and an evening party to follow.

When she came into the doctor’s house one morning, while Molly Mears and Karen were drinking coffee, she carried a list and a notebook. Her greeting was typically breezy.

“Good morning, you two quiet ones. I’ve been to your house, Karen, and your servant told me you were here. You have to start being important. Do you mind?”

“I certainly do.”

Mrs. Rawling accepted a cup of coffee, laughed a little. “It’s nothing, really. Andrew is the senior here and as his wife you have to vet any list that includes people who aren’t government staff. I’ve made my party up to forty, and to do it I’ve had to ask quite a number of non-g’s.”

“Who did it before I came?”

“Andrew himself, but it’s the wife’s job.”

Karen smiled. “If you’ve put them on your list you probably know they’re acceptable in the rarefied air of government circles. I pass your non-g’s without comment.”

“Who are they?” asked Mrs. Mears curiously. “The bank manager and his wife, of course, and Telson, the trading man. Who else?”

Mrs. Rawling gave a few names, and hesitated. There was no pointed look at Karen, or even any particular inflection in her voice as she said, “I’ve got the Marchants’ name down here. What do you think?”

“I don’t know.” Molly Mears pondered, then turned to Karen. “These Marchants are a bit tricky. There’s the colonel, who runs the shipping here, and his daughter. There was some hushed-up trouble about the colonel and we decided we’d better drop them. But Jake told me only the other day that the Colonel wasn’t to blame for whatever it was that happened.” To Mrs. Rawlings she said, “I suppose you’ve heard that too, or you wouldn’t have considered inviting them.”

Mrs. Rawling nodded. “My husband mentioned it. As a matter of fact I’m not at all sure he didn’t get it from Andrew.” She paused. “Yes, I remember now. Bob told me that Andrew said it would be a pleasant gesture to invite the Marchants up for a film show or something of that kind pretty soon, that it would demonstrate our regret for having believed the worst.” Quite artlessly, she said to Karen, “Andrew rather liked the Colonel and his daughter. The man is one of the old school gone tropical—fine-looking, very much the white master, but not averse to the company of freighter crews. He keeps open house for those men who are diving to find traces of the wreck.”

“You haven’t asked them, I hope,” said Mrs. Mears. This caused amusement, and Karen found it unnecessary to make any reply to Mrs. Rawling. Not that there was anything she could have said. Andrew had kept his promise to get Camilla an invitation; that was all.

“There’s one other rather important thing, Karen,” said Mrs. Rawling. “Last year Andrew let me put on my party in your house. Your living room is rather larger than anyone else’s, and naturally your veranda is correspondingly more roomy. I must say I feel a bit diffident about asking you this year, but it’s either that or I must cut down my number of guests for the evening. I promise you it wouldn’t cause you any trouble whatsoever. I’d bring servants and food and drink, cutlery, napkins, towels ... everything. In fact, the whole thing could be arranged in the afternoon by the servants, while we’re all out joy-riding. And naturally, my boys would clear up afterwards.” She smiled. “If you say no I shan’t mind a bit. I mean that.

How could a newcomer refuse such a request? Karen said cordially, “Go right ahead with your arrangements, Mrs. Rawling, and if I can help you in any way, I’ll be glad to.”

Mrs. Rawling had gone and Karen was standing, ready to slip through the garden to her own home, when Molly Mears commented quietly, “That was going a bit far—asking to use your house as if Andrew were a bachelor. I might tell you that Andrew didn’t offer last year; Cath Rawling asked, as she did just now.”

“It’s only one evening. I don’t mind.”

“Of course you do—any woman would mind. If you’d been established here a little longer she wouldn’t have had the nerve to suggest it. Cath’s a nice woman and a good friend, but she does have to be reminded that others can throw parties and cook and generally make life comfortable for the men. She could easily have kept her list down to about twenty-five, and managed the party in her own house.”

“Maybe I’ll assert myself next year.”

“Perhaps,” said Mrs. Mears with a motherly smile, “you won’t have to assert yourself. It might happen that you’ll have to keep the house quiet of an evening!”

Karen said goodbye, a little jerkily. “Thanks for the coffee. It’s been a cosy morning.” And she disappeared behind the gaudy hedge.

Since the rain the weather had been soft and warm without being oppressive. Halfway through that week there was a full moon that shed brilliance over the island for most of the dark hours. An immense moon which turned from silver to pale green, and showered a pathway of diamonds and silver coins over the sea.

The evening following the full moon, Andrew said, “The sea is beautifully calm. How would you like to go over to the reef in a canoe after dinner?”

“Very much,” she replied, in the careful tones she used these days. “I haven’t been out in a boat since I came here.”

It was about eight-thirty when they went down to the beach. Andrew pulled a canoe from its shelter under some bushes, dragged it to the edge of the water, helped her into it and pushed out. It rocked as he got in, but dexterous use of a paddle eased the motion, and soon they were moving slowly but smoothly towards the reef.

In the almost stagnant air, jungle scents stole out from the land and there was a faint sound of music from the dancing ground at the harbor. Karen could see a few lights over there, but trees shut out most of the waterfront. Anchored offshore, there was the black shape of a small ship, lanterns at port and beam.

“That’s the Vesica,” Andrew said. “Those salvage types are living aboard now instead of in tents.”

“Aren’t they leaving soon?”

“Their permit for the job they set themselves expires in about three days, but we’ve nothing against them. They can stay in port as long as they like.”

“Do you think they’ll hang on very long?”

“Maybe a week or two. Men of their sort can’t afford to be idle for very long. They occasionally tote freight for a man in Hong Kong, and he let them have the ship for this venture on a fifty-fifty basis.” He shrugged. “Two decently educated chaps and a mechanic. They’re a type that just can’t settle into a community and do an ordinary job.”

For some reason, Karen wished she could see the thing start moving out to sea, right now. It didn’t, of course. It seemed to be static, about a hundred yards from the waterfront.

The gloss of moonlight shut out the underwater life, but it sharply etched the coral rocks which encircled the bay and outlined the palms on the shore. They were between the two, smoothly crossing the lagoon. As they approached the reef, Andrew stopped paddling.

“Listen intently,” he said.

She did. There was a soft droning sound in several keys, an eerie music which seemed, though muted, to be all about them.

“What is it?” she whispered.

“You’ve heard of the singing coral. You can hear it best in a slight breeze, but tonight there seems to be plenty of underwater vibration. If you stare at any of the shadows close to the coral you’ll see plenty of fish.”

“They look like drifts of tinfoil.”

“Phosphorescence. We’ll come out in daytime and I’ll get you a coral candlestick. You can choose it for yourself from the canoe, and I’ll go down for it. This used to be a good lagoon for mother-of-pearl, but it’s gradually been almost emptied and a ten-year ban had to be imposed, so that the stuff could build up again.” He looked at her. “Do you find it a bit scary?”

“I wouldn’t want to come here alone.”

“That’s as it should be. Want to go back now?”

“I think so, but very slowly. It’s so peaceful out here.”

“It’s not exactly riotous in the house,” he remarked with irony, “but I know what you mean. Out here you feel as if you’re away from it all. I wish I did.” He paddled a few yards before adding, “I didn’t mean anything by that—nothing harsh.”

“I’m glad.”

He was silent for a moment. Then: “Have you been hoping for an apology from me?”

“No,” quickly. “No, of course not.”

“What am I to infer from that—that you’re anxious to forget?”

“Well, I...” she began, distressed.

But he broke in, “I just want you to know that in some things I’m no less sensitive than you are. I learned a lesson at Hill Lodge—that there can be nothing more devitalizing than making love to a woman against her will.”

She looked at the dark water. “There seemed to be more anger in you than ... than love.”

“You might remember what went before it—and think it all over. Then maybe we’ll discuss it,” he answered a little grimly. “We’ll go back to shore now.”

It was nearly ten when they returned to the house. Andrew poured a small gin and tonic for Karen and whisky and soda for himself. He put her drink into her hand.

“You’d probably prefer to drink it slowly in your room,” he said. “Goodnight.”

That night, and the whole of the next day, Karen wondered. She hated herself for thinking that in taking her out to the reef, talking without heat and casually sending her off afterwards Andrew had worked to some plan—or the beginning of some plan. He’d been so different; nothing like the old days in Cornwall, and nothing like the raging man who had left marks on her shoulders at Hill Lodge. He’d been detached and yet intimate, and determined not to be roused. From the depths of her quivering heart she wished it were possible to understand him, to make him realize the torment she felt ... when she felt at all.

Saturday morning came, the day of Mrs. Rawling’s all-day party. Andrew went up to the offices for an hour, Karen took a bath and decided to wear a candy-stripe sun frock. It had been arranged that Andrew should drive one of the cars and take two passengers. All would start out at round about ten o’clock and meet at a pre-arranged spot for elevenses, and from then on they would move in a convoy of eight cars. The Mearses would attend only this evening’s function. The doctor had released Dr. Wilmot for the day and put him on duty from six o’clock.

Karen came into the living room at a quarter to ten, and five minutes later Andrew turned up. He saw her standing in the doorway of the french window, slim and sweetly tanned, the honey-gold hair drawn back, the young lines of her face and neck sharply defined against the dimness of the room behind, her.

“You look charming,” he said, with the non-committal companionableness. “You’d better bring a hat and a light jacket. We’ll get away at once and collect the others.”

“Who are we taking?”

With a narrow, smiling glance, he said, “Tony, of course. And young Austin. Are you looking forward to it?”

“Yes. It’s time I saw more of Nemaka. What does one do all day?”

“This morning it will be driving, more or less. After lunch we’ll do whatever Cath Rawling has arranged—unless it doesn’t appeal to us. In that case, we decide ourselves what to do. The whole thing is just a giant-scale picnic.”

She had to ask it, as carelessly as she could. “I suppose you know what Miss Marchant and her father have been invited to spend the day with us?”

His nod was careless. “I’ve just heard that the Colonel’s off-color and Camilla will stay at home with him. Bad luck, but there it is.”

Something eased in Karen’s chest. “Shall we go now?”

“Sure. I’ll get your hat and jacket if you’ll tell me where they are.”

“Wouldn’t a scarf serve both purposes?”

“It’s no trouble to shove a hat in the trunk of the car. Make it the scarf and a hat. And, Karen—”

“Yes?” she said quickly.

He was smiling slightly, but his glance was keen. “This is your first time with the whole government tribe. No Prichards, but everyone else. It’s nothing to worry about, but I do want you to seem happy even if you aren’t, just yet. And don’t,” swiftly, to forestall her comment, “assure me that you won’t let me down. I want rather more than that. I want you to do your utmost to enjoy the day, not to pretend to do so for my sake.”

“I’ll do my best,” she said rather stiffly, and went off herself for the hat and scarf.

Tony Horwell was waiting in her veranda, with Austin, who lived next door to him. They came down to the car, slipped into the back seats.

“Good morning, Karen,” said Tony politely. “How are you?”

“Hallo, Tony,” she said. “Hallo, Mr. Austin.”

“Just Austin,” murmured the young man. “No one here thinks I even own a first name, and I haven’t been called mister since I left England.” He sank back. “I’m glad I’m with you, Andrew; it means we’ll get everywhere fast. May we smoke?”

“Go ahead,” said Andrew. “Give two to Karen—one for me.”

Instantly she thought, a little tensely. “Here we go again; playing for the crowd!” But she took the two cigarettes, lighted one and passed it to him and then used Tony’s lighter upon her own. She settled into her corner and watched the passing scene. Palms, coffee trees, grass huts under the trees and here and there a woman pounding coconut to make cream. In one clearing a whole family were cutting a tub of coconut-oil soap into bars, and further on more islanders were doing something which they left hurriedly, to smile and wave vigorously at the passing car.

“Kava,” said Andrew succinctly.

“What is that?” she asked.

“A kind of palm wine—very potent. We’re supposed to be told exactly how much is made, but we hear only the half of it. The same with the orange wine. Taken in quantity they’re both deadly.” He spoke over his shoulder. “Seen much kava-making lately, Tony?”

“No more than usual. Someone actually sent me a cask of the stuff on the last copra barge from Malu.”

“I suppose the copra was inferior?”

“Afraid so. You can’t blame them for trying a bribe. I gave the cask to my clerk—his family were having a wedding. And I marked the copra third-grade.”

“If it’s deteriorating on Malu you’ll have to go over there, Tony.”

A brief pause. Then: “It’s only a load now and then that’s of poor quality, but I’m going over next week.”

“A good idea.” Andrew spoke casually. “Before you leave you’ll be asked to attend a Committee meeting. We’re going to try new crops on the three main islands—soya, sisal, cotton and a few others. The trouble is, we’ve probably some pests that don’t harm what we grow already but might make a holy mess of new stuff. I think the Governor is going to ask you to do a spot of research.”

Tony took his time before answering. “Sounds interesting. Thanks.”

It was what Tony wanted above everything; Karen knew that. He was cool about it because he had found that his friendship with Andrew had changed or come to an end. Karen was certain Andrew had said nothing to Tony about his visit to the house last Saturday; though she could not be as sure that he had not wordlessly handed to Tony that official paper he had picked up from the floor. It was the sort of action no one would expect of Andrew. The worst of it was that Karen happened to be the one who had unwittingly forced them apart. She supposed she ought to be thankful that Andrew hadn’t carried out his threat to eliminate Tony from Nemaka.

They wound through low hills which were covered to their tops with palms and jungle vegetation. Globe mangoes were entwined with limes, an old vanilla garden whose vines had grown woody and unproductive had become blanketed in ferns, and a river they crossed was noisy but invisible under its covering of giant weed and bamboo. Everywhere the growth was prodigious and beautiful, and one could live almost anywhere along that road and find plenty to eat. Fine red bananas growing alongside huge mauve blossoms which would produce more bananas in a few weeks’ time; breadfruit trees, mangoes, oranges, papaya, passion fruit and the ever-present coconut. There were even a few pheasant to provide meat, and for the adventurous there was an occasional disgruntled wild pig, while a trip down the hillside with a spear could result in a basket full of fresh fish. No wonder the Nemakans were gentle and leisurely. They had never had to fight for their existence, or even to work much for it.

“It’s almost a pity,” said Karen, thinking aloud, “that white people came here at all. The islanders had everything before that and westernization will probably spoil them.”

Andrew sounded tolerant. “We’ve been here a good many years, you know. There were no schools, no roads, leprosy was rife, every hurricane cost them hundreds of lives and they were being exploited by every trader who came this way. They applied to Hong Kong for protection, and got it. We haven’t taken a single step in forming the constitution without the approval of the various headmen, and so far they’ve paid less than ten per cent in taxes towards the improvements.”

“They were probably happy enough without schools and roads.”

“Thirty or forty years ago, yes. Today a certain amount of education is necessary everywhere, if people aren’t to be misused. Ask Austin what he thinks of the education in the Leamans.”

Austin leaned forward. “It’s pretty good, and they’ll soon have their own local teachers. The Malays and Chinese have done a first-rate job, but they won’t be needed much longer. Remember the Schools Committee meeting you attended, Mrs. Eliot? Did you notice that the Nemakans had more to say than we did? At least half their demands and suggestions are acted upon, and we like it that way.” He smiled. “By the way, is it true that you’re coming on to the Committee permanently?”

“No,” she said quickly. “I don’t think so.”

“Pity.” He sounded regretful. “You sure brightened up that meeting!”

“I didn’t say a word.”

“Austin’s talking of the general scene,” Andrew explained with a grin. He nodded to the right as they took a bend. “How do you like that?”

It was the spot Mrs. Rawlings had chosen for midmorning refreshment. The cars were lining up on the left, but to the right a cleared space was rapidly assuming a picnic atmosphere. Folding tables held dishes of cakes and scones, cups and glasses. Those who had already arrived were lounging in chairs or on the cropped grass and staring down over a ravine at the distant sea; for the clearing was at the edge of a precipice. Straight below, the gorge was packed with a wilderness of tropical growth, but its opposite side was craggy in places, and trees actually grew out of isolated rocks. For sheer beauty, the view surpassed anything Karen had ever seen. She ventured closer to the edge.

“That’s far enough,” Andrew said, his arm firm about her waist. “Not bad, is it?”

She shook her head without speaking, knew that she had walked to this position so that he would do just what he did. Because this way, she thought a little tremulously, he had to hold her and she had to endure it, and no complications. She would have given anything to have been able to turn into his arms and cling.

She moved backwards and sat down, accepted a glass of ice-cold lemon and kept her glance on the view. People were laughing and chattering behind her, telling anecdotes about the short trip and discussing last night’s bridge party. She could hear Andrew persuading someone to try a biscuit and adjuring Mrs. Rawling to sit down and let the men do the serving. Rita Vaughan came and sat beside her.

“Hi. This is your first bunfight, isn’t it? What do you think of it?”

“The buns will keep,” said Karen. “The scene is breath-taking.”

“Wait till you’ve seen it as many times as I have,” came Rita’s jaded comment. She shook back her copper-colored hair. “Cath Rawling gives me the pip with her dinky ideas for large-scale entertaining. Who wants to be stuck with this mob for a whole day?”

“You should take it gradually. That’s what I’m doing. You and Clive came with the Coppards, didn’t you?”

Rita nodded. “They used to be our closest friends. They’re still Clive’s.”

“And yours, if you’d let them be.”

“No. I hate sane, satisfied women. I think what drew me to you was the fact that you’re newly married and strange to this kind of life; you’re uncertain in two spheres, so we have something in common. If you go sleek and contented on me, I’m stymied. By the way, do you play golf?”

“No. Only tennis.”

“There’s a course here, but part of it suddenly subsided several months ago—there was an underground spring, or something. Our tennis courts were eaten alive by land crabs.”

“I haven’t seen any crabs.”

“They come in plagues, like the cockroaches, ants and mosquitoes. Our only persistent pest is the lizard ... and boredom. I don’t mind lizards.”

“And you can’t bother to do much about boredom.” Karen smiled at her. “Have you noticed how difficult it is, once you’ve set a path for yourself, to move in any other direction?”

“I’m so terribly old,” said Rita, “that I’ve noticed everything and experienced practically everything, too. Maybe if there were...” She broke off abruptly, and then said offhandedly, “That silly woman has provided flowers for our hair. Can you beat that?”

Apparently the men did not consider Mrs. Rawling’s idea silly. Even Andrew played up. He came over and dropped to the grass beside Karen, showed her the waxen white gardenia he had chosen. The short stem was wired with nylon.

“It goes behind your ear,” he said. “South Seas fashion.”

“But not that ear, Andrew,” drawled Rita. “On Nemaka, the girl who has a sweetheart wears her flower over the left ear; the girl with no sweetheart over the right.”

“I believe that’s so. Well, Karen certainly has a sweetheart,” stated Andrew lightly, “so you’d better turn your head, little one, and let me fix the thing correctly.”

The fact that others had witnessed the small episode and laughed indulgently jarred Karen. Rita was right. The flowers looked right on Nemakan girls, with their brown skin and black hair; on white people they were out of place, almost self-conscious. She was judging by the other women’s appearance; she had forgotten that she was much younger than they, that her hair’s golden blondeness and her own tanned skin were an excellent foil to the unearthly whiteness of the gardenia.

The goods were packed, the cars moved on. It was typical of Andrew that he should draw out to the head of the column and speed well ahead. For a time no one in the car voiced more than a remark or two about the pleasantness of the atmosphere even though it was almost midday. Villages sped by, they stopped to greet a headman, and drove on through one of Clive Vaughan’s forests. Andrew pointed out old sandalwood trees among the cultivated teak. No one ever destroyed a sandalwood, it seemed, though occasionally some of them were felled and sent to the mainland, for the manufacture of intricate pictures and boxes for the tourist trade.

They were now on the north side of the island, and as the crow flies not more than five or six miles from Government Town. But Oponui stood in the way, a conical peak clothed in forest, and the shortest road—a rough one through plantations—was fourteen miles. Today they were taking the coast road the whole way.

Mrs. Rawling had arranged a short entertainment before lunch. As they entered a wide village street, girls in sarongs with leis about their necks waved graceful hands as if inviting the visitors to stop wherever they chose. Then the girls formed into a square and sat cross-legged on the worn grass until the guests were seated on the log forms provided.

Their dance began in that position, with sinuous movements from the waist and the curling of their hands above their heads. Almost imperceptibly they rose to their feet, and a moment later they drifted away. Apparently they were merely a preliminary, to whet the appetite. The main performers were men who juggled, turned somersaults and sweated profusely. At moments Karen found herself more interested in the ramshackle houses which lined the streets. Bare, among the trees, they would have looked like symmetrical heaps of dried-up vegetation, but they were by no means bare. Huge fruits and pans of grain were spread on the roofs to dry; arms of green and pink bananas hung in the verandas and over the veranda rails drooped an amazing variety of begonias and ferns and trailing geraniums. It was odd, she thought, that among so many trees and wild flowers the women should put themselves out to grow more in petrol tins and even in canned fruit tins.

But there was no doubt that the Nemakans loved flowers. They wore them in strings round their necks, in crowns on their hair, in anklets and even in belts; and many of the blossoms were only distantly related to the plentiful gardenia and rose-colored hibiscus.

By the time the entertainment was over and copious thanks had been spoken, Karen’s legs were beginning to itch unbearably. In the car, as they moved to the picnic rendezvous beyond the village, she couldn’t help but scratch. And then she looked down and saw them, dozens of huge red ants, coursing about her feet and up to her calves. She gave a stifled scream, Andrew braked, and within seconds he had her out of the car and was sweeping her feet and legs free of the pests. The red bites were given a dose of neat antiseptic, and the car got under way again.

Austin laughed. “You’ll have to take to drink, Karen. They used to bite me when I first came, but it seems they don’t care for the taste of whisky in the blood.”

“Those houses back there must be ant-ridden,” she said, shuddering. “And they’re not even nice little black ants.”

“The villagers are immune, or nearly,” Andrew said. “Over in Government Town we have to treat chair and table legs with ant-paste at certain times. It keeps the bugs away from the food.” His sideways smile at her was companionable. “There’s a bottle of antiseptic in every car for emergencies, and when we go some way from town we take a first-aid kit.”

“I’ve noticed there’s one in my car. I’m glad you don’t have snakes; I think I might lose my head if I got snakebite.”

“We do have a few scorpions,” Austin offered. “They’re nasty, but I’ve never heard of their bite killing anyone.”

“Most reassuring,” Karen said. “Shall we talk about books?”

But by now they had arrived at the beach where they were to have lunch. Some of the men were already shedding their clothes down to briefs and taking a plunge in the brilliant blue sea, and a few women joined them, though it seemed to be tacitly agreed that the women’s job was to set out the gargantuan feast Mrs. Rawling had prepared and brought in large picnic coolers.

No doubt by arrangement, a quartet of islanders with musical instruments appeared from the trees. They sat down and tuned up, began quietly to play island melodies while the food was served and eaten. To Karen’s amusement, not only little boys but young men and women stole on to the fringe of the group and smilingly held out banana leaves for food. There was ample for everyone; when the trunk of one car had been emptied another was opened.

Singing followed the food, and some people unashamedly went to sleep. Mrs. Rawling had said that after a rest there would be events in the surf. Karen, already drowsy, wondered how she would feel when evening came; she wished she could learn the knack of a good sleep after lunch, as others did.

Andrew, lying on his back a couple of feet away from her, spoke softly. “There’s something about a mile inland from here that I’d like to show you. How about it?”

She was suddenly aware of the beating of her heart. “Are we allowed to steal away?”

“Look at them; we’ll be back before they even notice our absence. Come on.”

They departed casually, treading over the white sand towards the road as if taking a stroll. They got into the car, and Karen was suddenly acutely conscious of the empty back seat. Strange she should feel this sense of intimacy; she had known nothing quite like it at the house.

Perhaps Andrew was aware of her slight tension, for he said easily, “This is why I insisted you bring a hat. There’s quite a walk at the end of the track and the sun is blistering, even on a coolish day like this. I meant to bring you over here on your first Sunday, but that was the day we spent at Hill Lodge.” Nothing in his tone to indicate that he was recalling any of the events at Hill Lodge.

“It’s very wild just here,” she remarked awkwardly.

“The main traffic is the ox-cart, though most of the officials have to tour the island occasionally for some reason or another.” He braked beside a wide footpath which climbed the hill. “Here we are. Put the scarf about your shoulders and I’ll get your hat.”

It was a fairly steep climb but not a long one. They arrived at a worn, grassy plateau and a most surprising sight. There were two long stucco buildings with palm-thatch roofs; dozens of children playing among low parallel bars and wooden horses or sitting round rough tables under the bread-fruit and lemon trees.

A little girl shrieked, “Tuan Pappa!” and dashed into the nearest building. Others looked shy, but most of them smiled and clapped their hands. Andrew waved to them. “Hallo, there. Where’s Pappa Nimal?”

Treble voices replied, unintelligibly, but Andrew nodded as if he understood. An old man came through a door, a brown, wizened man in crumpled canvas trousers and a faded pink shirt. His sparse hair was white, his face like an outsize walnut, but his pleased smile and half-bow showed that he appreciated the honor of Andrew’s visit. When Andrew shook his hand the man looked tiny beside him.

“Karen, this is Dr. Nimal, who runs the Home. He retired once, but we brought him back and he’s promised to stay here for good. Doctor, this is my wife.”

“What a great pleasure, madam,” said the old man ceremoniously. “Many times I have told Tuan Eliot that he should marry, and now he has done so. Please ... come in out of the sun.”

“We haven’t very long, I’m afraid,” said Andrew. “We happened to be nearby with a party and thought we’d look in. Tell me, how is that little boy they called Timmy—the one I brought here just before I went on leave?”

“He was very bad—a big infection. He is better now, but not quite clear. He is still isolated.”

“I’ll go over and see him, I think. Would you mind showing my wife some of the things you’ve had rigged for the children?”

“It would be a privilege.”

Andrew strode into the second building and the old man bowed again and indicated that they were to walk first under the trees. He stopped beside a low table surrounded by brown, bright-eyed boys and girls.

“These make pictures. It is what they do best. See? Already one has made the Tuan Pappa in a few lines. Him they know, but you, madam, they will not draw until you have gone. It would not be polite!”

Karen smiled at them, and passed on. Bigger boys were intent upon wood carvings, others did leatherwork. Girls made baskets and proudly showed lengths of batik over which they had labored. Some of their work, the doctor said, was even fit for sale down in Government Town, and they would eventually be able to take employment.

The most heart-warming sight, of course, was the babies and toddlers scrabbling about in the shade, watched by a young nurse. Karen knelt and lifted a child to its feet. It was a little girl with huge dark almond-shaped eyes and straight black hair; she was solemn and pudgy, very interested in the blue ribbon about Karen’s white hat. She climbed confidingly into Karen’s arms, and Karen stood up holding her.

“You love children as the tuan does,” said the old doctor, “but your emotions about them are naturally different. With him, they are individuals who must be made clean and healthy. It was he who started this home, had it built and went in search of someone to look after the children. He found four Malay nurses and one very old Malay doctor who had already made himself a seat in the sun for old age.” His smile was gracious. “Pappa Nimal, the man said to me, you are no longer retired. You are needed. And here I am, and happier than I have ever been in my life.”

“It’s splendid work, doctor,” she said, looking about her. “Are they orphans, these children?”

‘You did not know?” he said in surprise. “They are the children of tuberculous parents. Here in Nemaka we have no hospital for tuberculosis, and the patient must be treated in his own home. But the contacts, the children of those homes, were potential victims of the disease. Tuan Eliot said it was not to be tolerated—that the children should inevitably become infected by their elders—and so he began this scheme of separating the children from their homes while the infection is there, and giving them a good diet. The Tuan Governor agreed to give land and laborers for building and Tuan Eliot did everything else. We have now been established more than two years.”

Karen’s throat was full. She saw Andrew approaching and said quickly, “I’ll come again, doctor. I’d like to see more.”

Andrew, tall, commanding and enigmatic, took the child from her arms and lowered her to the ground. “Only six cases in there,” he commented to the doctor. “There must have been eighteen when I last came here. We’re catching them in time.”

“I am happy to say that is so. I know you must leave us now, but please come again soon. It is so long since we had one of our little meetings to decide certain things, and I grow too old for some decisions, tuan.”

“We’ll come,” Andrew promised. “Some time within the next month or two you’ll be receiving a case of junior gymnasium apparatus I ordered in England. When it arrives I’ll come over and get it fixed up. So long, Pappa Nimal.”

Karen gave the old man her hand, felt strength in his hot dry fingers. “Goodbye, Dr. Nimal. I’m so glad to have met you, and seen this place.”

She raised a hand to the children, turned and walked at Andrew’s side. When she looked back they were halfway dong the hill, and there was nothing to see but the path flanked by bananas and mango trees.

Andrew took her elbow, nodded towards a narrow path which ran through the jungle to the left. “There’s a stream just through there. Just a look at it will cool you.”

He plunged ahead, gave her a hand over protruding roots, and drew her on till they came to a green tunnel with a narrow stream flowing through it. The ground was wet the forest about them dripped ceaselessly, but it must have been the coolest place in Nemaka. The darkness, with only a dappling of green light here and there, was an uncanny but welcome relief from the hot glare.

He found a dead log, spread his handkerchief to save her skirt from stain, and himself took the risk of sitting at her side. He leaned forward, looking at the dark flowing water.

There was no guiding expression in his voice as he asked, “What did you think of the place up there?”

“It was marvellous. Your idea, I gathered.”

“I like to think so. The Governor was very agreeable, and we wouldn’t have got anywhere without someone like Dr. Nimal.”

“You’ve never mentioned it—not at all.”

“I’ve been waiting for the opportunity. So far, the place has been planned and run only by men, but I believe it’s reached a stage where it needs something more. After all half the kids are girls, and three-quarters of the whole number are young enough to need parents You’re not terribly mature yourself,” with a smile which robbed the remark of its sting, “but you probably have the right instincts where children are concerned. We’ll be glad to use any ideas you may have.”

Karen was silent. She remembered the faint mockery with which he had witnessed her first sight of the huge playground under the trees, the slight roughness with which he had sharply taken the island child from her arms. Even now his expression was unreadable. A glance showed him still regarding the water with a tolerant look about his mouth.

“If I do have any ideas I’ll let you know,” she said. “As I’m so new here they’re not likely to be worth much.”

“They’ll be yours,” he stated, “and every day that passes makes you less new to the islands. Ever thought of that?”

“No but I suppose it’s true. Do you remember...”

She stopped suddenly, and he turned his head towards her. “Do I remember what?”

“It’s nothing.”

It’s more than nothing if it was something we shared.” But he let it pass. His left hand came up and lifted her hat. She moved back a fraction and momentarily his eyes glinted. He dropped the hat on her lap, and with a deliberate motion he took the squashed flower from behind her ear and slipped his fingers through the hair which had been flattened. Just that, and no more. He turned back to contemplation of the river.

In tones which held the trace of a smile he said, “I watched your face as you suddenly saw those children. You looked about ten yourself. I know you feel nearer a hundred, but that’s how you looked.”

“I don’t feel old,” she said. “I feel appallingly juvenile.”

He gave an offhanded laugh. “Time will take care of that. Feel rested?”

She stood up at once. ‘Yes. We ought to go.”

But just then there was a sudden rustling among the trees and a little grey monkey slithered down a trunk and stood still, staring at them. A white patch above each eye made him look comically surprised. Andrew made a tiny, clucking sound, but the monkey continued to gaze at them, as though hypnotized.

With a lightning movement Andrew lunged forward and caught the little animal by its back. It struggled for only a moment, then hung limp.

“He’s shamming dead,” Andrew commented. “Come on, old chap, greet the missus.”

“Poor little thing,” she murmured, gingerly touching a hind paw. “You’re holding his skin too tightly at the neck.”

“If I slackened he’d bite. Like to take him home and tame him? It wouldn’t take long.”

“I don’t think any animal is really happy where it doesn’t belong.”

“Nor any human, either,” he said calmly. “But you’d be amazed how certain animals will take to a household. A few years ago I had a small Pacific bear that sat in the doorway at exactly a quarter past five every afternoon, waiting for me, and he always watched me shaving, through the bathroom window. He cooked his goose when I had guests one evening. Somehow he got into the spare bedroom, and when my friends were ready to depart we found the bear in a welter of shredded silk wraps and cosmetics. It cost me twenty pounds and at least one beautiful friendship.”

She smiled. “It was an original ending, anyway—more interesting than growing tired of the wench. Do let this poor beast go.”

He gave her a speculative look which had nothing whatever to do with the monkey, then turned and placed the quivering little thing on a branch. The monkey had been in captivity for no more than three minutes, but he could hardly believe he was free. He sat absolutely still for a long moment, then sprang to a higher branch and leaned down. His language, judging by the consonants and its vituperative strength, must have been scorching. Karen threw back her head and laughed.

Andrew laughed a little too. He took her arm and they began walking. “That’s the first time you’ve laughed spontaneously since we got here,” he said. “Keep it up, there’s a good girl. I need reminding that I haven’t killed that gaiety of yours. I couldn’t live with myself if I had.”

She was too self-conscious to say anything, and he added probingly, “You are feeling happier, aren’t you?”

A little indistinctly she answered, “I don’t know. I try not to think very much.”

“About me?”

“About anything.”

“That’s the defence mechanism at work, but no mechanism keeps going for ever.”

She said haltingly, “I know you’re as disappointed in me as I am...”

But he broke in, with an oddly gentle brusqueness, “Don’t get shaky now, for heaven’s sake; that’s the very last thing I want. But there’s one thing you must get into your head. You may be disappointed—I’m not. What I feel is something far more positive than disappointment and some time it will call for positive action. So long as neither of us deliberately upsets the other we’ll get through. Just keep reminding yourself of one thing: in England you loved me enough to marry me, and it goes without saying that I loved you enough to marry you. But success in marriage is rather more than being in love with someone you’re convinced is the right partner. It’s also a matter of being the right partner yourself. Marriage, of itself, can’t fail. It’s the people who won’t give themselves to it in every way who fail.”

They were emerging on to the road, near the car, and she could do as she so often did these days, avoid replying. Hollowly she thought what a blessed relief it would be to give in, to accept the fact of being married to provide him with an adaptable wife, and force herself to be satisfied with rather less than her body and spirit craved. As the Senior Executive Officer’s wife she was someone, and when, inevitably, he was promoted to a position of sole command, she would be correspondingly important. Could those things make up in some measure for the barrenness of their personal life together?

Andrew was letting in the clutch and saying mockingly, “Too bad I should make you think just when you’re trying so hard not to. But you can stop worrying, little one. You may not believe it, but I’m on your side!” He swung the car and tacked on. “Don’t let Cath Rawling coax you to do anything energetic. There’s a long day to get through yet.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Actually, Karen quite enjoyed the rest of that afternoon, and by six-thirty, when she was able to wallow in a warm, foamy bath, she was excited and expectant. In her room, she took her time over getting into the off-white frock which left her shoulders bare, and making up her face. Andrew had obligingly yielded his bedroom for the guests’ wraps, but he had told her, exasperatedly, that it would have to be fumigated before he’d spend another night in there; it already reeked of camellias. For what might be left of tonight, after the party, he would sleep on the veranda.

Cath Rawling was in command of the kitchen and living room. Tables were stacked with cold chicken and tinned ham, salads, snacks, jars of caviare and fish dainties. A small band of musicians had grouped themselves in the garden, and the usual crop of islanders had collected on the outskirts, to watch and creep closer as the festivity gathered momentum.

Tonight, cars were left out on the road. Cath greeted everyone as if this were the first time she had seen them for a week, and accepted a couple of gifts; even in her best green frock she looked breezy and managing, more like a paid hostess than a woman celebrating her own birthday.

Drinks were served by the Rawlings’ servants augmented by Anai; the music flowed in, guitars and leather bowl-drums combining pleasantly and exotically to provide a good dancing rhythm. But dancing hadn’t yet begun when Camilla arrived.

She came hesitantly into the porch, stood there looking shy and very feminine in a golden yellow frock which billowed at the waist and was cut to enhance the curves and flatter the slender arms. Her black hair she had drawn back into a fashionable swathe, but tendrils clustered about her nape and escaped from the sleekness above her ears, so that she looked like a lovely girl trying hard to appear old and responsible.

“Good evening, Mrs. Rawling,” she said, in the moment’s silence she herself had created. “I really didn’t know whether to come or not. But I was alone, and I though...”

“Well, of course!” cried Cath Rawling, very heartily. “How is your poor father?”

“Better, thank you. He’s sleeping, and our houseboy is on duty.”

“Such a pity he had to crack up today. We’d have loved to have you both with us. You do know everyone, don t you, Camilla? Austin, dear, do give Camilla a drink!”

Austin did, most readily. “Did you drive yourself here?” Karen heard him query.

“I couldn’t very well drive in this get-up, could I. A neighbor was kind enough to bring me. I was terrified of coming, but I did feel a little out of things and I’ve been saving up this dress for just such an occasion as this.”

“It’s stunning,” pronounced Austin. “Why in the world were you terrified of us?”

“Well,” winningly, “you’re rather a cold lot, you know, especially the women. My father always says government officers’ wives are a special breed—a sort of tribe that they raise in England just for that purpose. Is that wicked?”

“It’s typical of an Englishman who can’t stand the English. If that’s the way he feels, it’s time your father dropped the colonel and became plain mister.”

“Oh, he wouldn’t do that,” came Camilla’s demure tones. “The Tuan Colonel is quite famous in the Leamans. You wouldn’t want him to lose his treasured atmosphere and become nondescript, would you? At his age?”

Karen moved away, spoke to the Coppards and found herself close to Tony Horwell. Tony took her glass, gave her the smile which, she had noticed earlier in the day, had the faint tightness of strain.

“I didn’t think she’d show up tonight,” he said. “But she has the brazen nerve to do anything.”

“I didn’t expect her myself,” Karen replied, low-voiced. “I’m afraid I was rather glad the Colonel was ill.”

“He’s not sick. If you went to his house you’d probably find him eating a rich dinner with his pals.”

She searched his face. “Are you sure? But why the pretence? Camilla could have made some excuse for her father’s absence and spent the whole day with us.”

“A whole day was too much for Camilla’s purpose. There’s nothing intimate about a picnic, and by tonight she’d have been so easily accepted that she wouldn’t have made an entrance. You saw how she posed in the doorway.”

“A very beautiful picture.”

“A fresh and entrancing vision, intended to make other women look a bit stale.”

“You mean me.”

“She didn’t succeed,” he said at once, “but you do look tired, suddenly. I wish you wouldn’t take it so hard. Andrew doesn’t care about her any more.”

Karen couldn’t explain what it was that made everything so futile. The careful seductive manner of Camilla, the rich gold frock which was an excruciatingly painful reminder of herself in sweet primrose yellow, standing beside a tall immaculate figure in grey.

She put on a bright smile. “She’s not important. Are you happy about getting a chance to do some research?”

His smile was a trifle worn. “I’d be happier if I’d got it on merit. I don’t doubt that the Governor felt I could do the job, but I wouldn’t mind betting that the idea originated with Andrew. We don’t click any longer, and he wants me busy and out of the way.”

He stopped speaking, and started again, hurriedly. Karen turned instinctively to find the cause. She saw that Andrew had come into the room, that he had crossed to speak to Camilla. She didn’t hear a word Tony said, but turned to him with the set smile.

“Dance with me, Tony. Out on the veranda.”

That was the sort of evening it turned out to be. Somehow she kept clear of Camilla till after midnight. She saw the gold dress swirling to music, the partners changing, Andrew’s easy smile and moving lips as he took his turn, just once. She herself danced twice with him, but hardly a thing was said between them; maybe he felt the shrinking of her skin from the touch of his hand, the tension of her nerves. A fleeting glance upward showed that he had the tight dark look.

The party ended soon after midnight, simply because most of the guests were too worn to keep it up. They complimented Mrs. Rawling and thanked her profusely. They told Karen she was a sport to let them kick dents in the floor and fling powder all over the spare room, and they got into cars, or strolled away in the moonlight, Karen’s head throbbed, and because there was still some paraphernalia to go through with Mrs. Rawling, she slipped into her bedroom for a spot of eau de cologne. And there she found Camilla Marchant.

The other girl turned round from the lamplit mirror, blinked her dark-fringed eyes and said softly, “I’m so sorry. I came late, if you remember, and I wasn’t sure which bedroom we were using.”

“Why apologize, if you thought you were in the correct room?” said Karen, as quietly. “I don’t mind your being here.”

Camilla looked about her. “This looks as if it were only a woman’s room.” Her smile was confident as she added charmingly, “I did hope I’d see you alone, anyway. I feel I ought to tell you how deeply sorry I am that I was so ... so crude the day we first met. It was unhappiness that drove me to it, I’m afraid. I’m not usually so unwise. I do hope you’ve forgiven me.”

Still stinging from that devastating comment on the room, Karen said offhandedly, “There was nothing to forgive.”

“You’re being restrained and noble; there was a great deal to forgive. I should never have put into words what I feel about Andrew, and certainly it was dreadful of me to tell you that he loves ... loved me. Compared with his future, his feelings and mine aren’t terribly important. I did want you to understand.”

“Let us say I do understand, and leave it there.”

Camilla shook her dark head despondently. “You don’t forgive me; that’s obvious. How can I prove that Andrew and his career mean more to me than my own happiness?”

“I don’t think it matters awfully,” said Karen stoically. “If you’re sincere, you’ll keep away from us both.”

“That sounds,” said Camilla, in subdued, hurt tones, “as if you’re afraid of me. What could I possibly do to harm you?”

‘You made quite a good start with your letter to Lady Prichard.”

Camilla’s mouth rounded innocent and soundlessly. She was displaying all the wide-eyed tolerance that a beautiful woman can afford to lavish upon her less fortunate sisters. “I couldn’t come here and tell you myself that I’d seen you with those men, could I? It would have looked as if I were blackmailing you. I was most careful how I worded the letter.”

“Naturally. You didn’t want to be dropped from the social circle before you’d been picked up again. I just don’t care for lies of that sort.”

“But it was true! You and Rita Vaughan did meet Ben Brooke.”

“But you didn’t see us. The man himself must have told you. He likes Rita but he doesn’t care for my type, so he felt a little avenged when he’d told you about meeting me. Perhaps the two of you cooked up that sweet and reasonable letter; you took care to omit any mention of Mrs. Vaughan.” Karen pressed a hand to the chilly skin of her face. ‘You and I haven’t a thing to say to each other. The rest of the guests have left.”

“I’m going.” In fact, Camilla was at the door. “There’s just one detail I ought to tell you, though. I don’t know how it happened, but tonight I found myself asking Andrew whether you or Lady Prichard had told him about that little encounter you had with Ben Brooke. Of course, as soon as I’d spoken I wished I’d held my tongue, because I could tell it was the first he’d heard about it. He’ll probably be a bit cross with you, but I’m trying to atone by warning you, so that you’ll be prepared when he asks about it.”

The soft, insidious voice came to an end, the false smile turned momentarily into a triumphant smirk, and Camilla was gone. Her teeth clamped, Karen drew a deep breath and followed her. The Rawlings were in the veranda, waiting for Camilla, whom they were to take home.

“Thanks so much Karen,” said Mrs. Rawling, in a voice so loud and hearty that it hurt. “My boys will be round to clear up first thing in the morning.”

“We were glad to help,” Karen managed. “It’s been a wonderful day.”

“A roaring success, though I say it myself. Well, goodnight, you two. Sleep well. Lucky tomorrow’s Sunday!”

Karen forced herself to remain in the porch till their car had reversed. Then, without looking at Andrew, she said, “I’m terribly tired and it’s very late. I’m going straight to bed. Goodnight.”

He did not answer. Karen had the fatal conviction that he didn’t trust himself to speak a syllable. She got into bed and put out the light, thought hazily of Andrew with a little monkey in his hands and of herself clasping a solemn-eyed island toddler. She felt clammy and weak and utterly helpless.

They were back where they had been several days ago, but with the difference that Karen became acutely conscious of a sense of impending climax. Andrew, polite and indifferent, spoke only when it was unavoidable, and Karen, equally polite but two wretched to assume indifference, was almost completely silent. Andrew said nothing about Ben Brooke or Camilla, or about anyone else, come to that. Two days running he went off early in the morning to the other end of the island, returning only in time for a latish dinner.

On the second of these days Rita Vaughan sauntered in at about four-thirty for a cup of tea. She was wearing one of her new frocks, a tight red thing that fought furiously with her hair, and for some reason she sported a green choker. She looked what she was, a woman who had gone very much off-key and was defiantly opposed to any attempt to get back to normal. Yet her smile was nonchalant.

“One thing I like about coming to see you,” she said with a crooked smile, “is that I never come across you writing screeds home. That seems to be the passionate occupation of every woman in Government Road ... except you and me. You haven’t got parents, and mine would think I’d some illness if I wrote more often than twice a year. Do you write to your aunts, by the way?”

“I’ve started, a few times.” Karen changed the topic. “Very quiet since Cath Rawling’s party, isn’t it?”

Rita nodded, and stretched her long thin legs. “Can’t decide whether it’s the silence before or after the storm. Could be that strange pause you sometimes get during a really noisy squall. Only there’s nothing so exciting as a squall, at the moment, is there? Let me see, what happens next in the Nemaka calendar?”

“Isn’t it the fishing festival?”

“That’s island stuff. You just look on, if you feel like it.” She lifted an eyebrow. “It’s on Friday, you know.” And with a wink: “There’s something else doing on that day, too. You know our friends on the Vesica—Captain Kidd and his merry men? They’re throwing a sundowner party on board for their various friends at the other end of town. I was asked to invite you along.”

“The man has a sense of humor. You’re not going yourself, are you?”

“I wouldn’t mind. They’re leaving at the weekend, and Friday will be my last chance of getting a spot of relaxation.” She did not sound urgent, but she said, “I wish you’d go with me, Karen. I’m sure we’d enjoy it.”

“You’re crazy.” With a faint glint of her old humor, she asked, “Why don’t you ask Clive to take you? Might do you both good and it would certainly cause a mild upheaval among your friends on the Vesica. I’m sure they’re averse to husbands!”

“Don’t be funny. The chief thrill about this indiscretion of mine is keeping it secret. But I’ve wondered a few times whether it wouldn’t be good to be free. I’d like to have married the sort of man who’d steer off in a ship and look for treasure.”

“The trouble is, they don’t marry. I hope one day you’ll know how lucky you are in having a man who dotes on you, as Clive does. And don’t be too sure he’ll stand anything so long as you stay with him. He probably has his breaking point.”

“You know,” said Rita seriously, “I wouldn’t want to be there if Clive reached his. Not that there’s any fear of it. The one thing he won’t believe is that I’ll clear off. He’s no idea how close I’ve been to it!”

“A good thing too. Just being married to someone like you must be gruelling enough. You don’t deserve him.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, my dear. We all get the husband or wife we deserve—didn’t you know that? Just look at Government Road—the Coppards, fussy Mr. Rawling, even Jake Mears and his wife. And what about you and Andrew! Surely you’ll admit you deserve a big protective cavalier! Of course, some people might say he deserves someone who’ll stand up to him and take a knock at that self-assurance of his, but on the whole you’re not badly matched.”

“And you and Clive?” said Karen evenly. “Would you say that Clive is such a mouse that he deserves to be pushed around?”

“I refuse to feel a cad,” stated Rita equably. “I like Captain Kidd and that’s why I want to go to his farewell party. It’s only because it’s at sundowner time that I can’t just slide off on my own. You might co-operate, Karen. We could take a picnic tea and get back late without causing a ripple.”

Fleetingly, Karen reflected that the man could have said nothing against herself to Rita Vaughan. Perhaps even to Camilla he had only been frank, not vindictive. But it didn’t matter.

“Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t possibly go with you,” she said flatly. “Have a cigarette and talk of something else.”

“I’d like to have attended the little binge,” Rita said regretfully, “but there it is. You don’t get anything good without taking a risk.” She didn’t explain her final sentence, but instead began to talk about people she knew who were now settled in Hong Kong. At five-fifteen she went off as she had come, sauntering.

On Thursday, Andrew came in to lunch for the first time that week. They had reached coffee and a cigarette when he said, “We’re invited to dine privately with the Prichards this evening; it will probably become an accepted thing every Thursday unless something official crops up. I used to go there alone one evening a week.”

“Very well.”

“Formal wear, but nothing startling.” He paused. “By the way, some time we’ll have to go across to the mainland and get you some jewels. If V.I.P.’s turn up here they like to see full dress.”

Karen took care to make no obvious retort. She nodded. But she thought she would probably be far away and forgotten before important visitors came to Nemaka. Andrew didn’t know it, but the only way she kept going these days was by reminding herself quite often that this could not possibly last much longer.

That evening she put on a figured blue silk frock and the row of pearls Aunt Grace had given her on her twenty-first. As she pushed home the clasp she recalled the occasion. Aunt Grace, who was never entirely sure of herself, had quite palpitated through breakfast and gone tearful with relief when, after Karen had enthused and kissed her for it, Aunt Laura had placed the seal of her approval on the necklace.

“The pearls are very sweet, Grace dear, and I’m most glad you bought them because I’m giving Karen a cheque, and we wouldn’t want her to have nothing to remind her of her coming-of-age. There’ll be gifts from her friends, of course, but she can’t keep chocolates or bath salts as a memento, can she?”

How long ago it seemed, that day which the aunts had done their utmost to make memorable for her. Friends in for tea and sandwiches and a piece of the magnificent cake—she still had the gilt key from it — and dinner in Falmouth with quite a good show to follow. At the pottery they’d made her a white china basket full of flowers, and later, when they’d heard she was to be married, they’d... She drew a shaky sigh, squared her shoulders and stood back from the mirror. Not bad. Blue always brought out the greenness in her eyes, but that made them look clearer and more lively. Looking alert was the next best thing to feeling it; one had to be on one’s toes with Marcia Prichard.

She drew in the bedroom’s french window. It was very dark out there, no moon yet, and the thick branches of the giant tree shut out the early stars. There came the scent of jasmine, the headier fragrance of ginger bush and frangipani, all of them tropical and alien. Impossible, now, to recall the lavender sweetness of the garden in which she had grown up. It was hardly more than a fortnight since she had last walked the old paths, and perhaps quite soon she would see them again. But nothing would ever be the same as before. Too much had happened to her, too much that went right through to her depths, and changed her. She clicked the lock of the french window, gathered her stole and went through to the living room.

Andrew was there, tall and impeccable in one of his white jackets, the picture of arrogant, overbearing masculinity. With a practised, relentless charm he took the wrap from her and threw it about her shoulders. If he noticed the modest necklace and lack of earrings he made no sign.

They set out at a purring speed, moved the length of Government Road and turned between the posts of the Residency. From within the cloister of trees that lined the drive they could see the splendid white outline of the mansion, the flag, the illumined lower rooms and terrace.

He pulled up just beyond the steps, came round to help her out. Sir Wallace stood in the wide entrance, extending a hand.

“Good evening, my dear Karen ... Andrew.” He clapped a hand to Andrew’s upper arm. “This is really like old times, but much better. I always knew that what you lacked was a wife, but I wasn’t clever enough to realize just the kind of wife you needed. You had to do that yourself. Come along to the small sitting room. Marcia will be there by now. The servant will take your things, Karen.”

Marcia Prichard was friendly graciousness itself. She drew Karen to a sofa in the cosy little sitting room, accepted her own drink when Karen had been served, and spoke comfortably about the trifles that make up daily living. It was odd, Karen reflected as she smiled and gave automatic replies, that without really trying she should have made almost an ally of Lady Prichard. Had everything been ecstatically normal between herself and Andrew this relationship with the Governor’s wife would have loomed like a black mountain, but as things were, she gave almost no thought to it beyond maintaining a certain quiet correctness.

Her success with the Prichards was ironical and bitter. More so when she saw Andrew standing with Sir Wallace, suave and smiling, answers to every question about the islands right there on the tip of his tongue. Even Sir Wallace, the veteran overlord, could not confound Andrew. No one could.

They had dinner in an adjoining room, just the four of them. A silent servant, candle-glow, good wines, a slow bowl of smilax and gardenias softly reflecting the yellow light, unrehearsed family conversation.

They were almost ready to move back to the sitting room for coffee when Lady Prichard said, “I think it’s time you spoke your piece to Andrew, Wallace. After all, we four do understand each other now, and I’m sure Andrew won’t mind.”

Sir Wallace, who had looked a little awkward and even colored faintly, made a gruff reply. “Trust Marcia to make me do something a little delicate while we’re all here. I intended speaking to you about it alone, Andrew.”

“What have I done?” asked Andrew with a casual smile. Superbly sure he had done nothing wrong, thought Karen hollowly.

“Do go on, Wallace,” said his wife plaintively. “It’s not for me to put these things into words, but if you’re going to hesitate and skirt the subject I shall have no option.”

“The fact is, my boy,” said Sir Wallace, even more gruffly, “Bingham put your personal file before me this morning.” An apologetic shrug towards Karen. “There was the matter of the marriage allowance and one or two other things ...” He stopped and said irritably, “Marcia, it was wrong of you to insist on this now. I would much prefer to talk this over privately with Andrew, a little later in the evening.”

“I know you would, dear,” his wife answered smoothly, “but it affects Karen as well. Go on. We’re all waiting.

Resignedly, but smiling again, the Governor went on, “Well, Andrew, you know how Marcia and I felt about your marrying so suddenly. We were a little put out. But since we’ve known Karen we feel very differently, I assure you! We’ve talked of a wedding gift, but Nemaka is not an ideal shopping center, and in any case, we wanted to give you something you’d treasure. The fact is,” he actually eased his collar a little nervously, “when I looked at your papers I noticed that you weren’t married on the date we’d all assumed. Indeed, I was quite astounded and most perturbed to see that you must have married on the very day you left England for the Leaman Islands.”

“That’s so,” said Andrew, cool and pleasant. “I thought it would be better for Karen if everyone here thought we’d been married a couple of weeks when we arrived. Even Bingham didn’t see the usual form. I filled it in and put it in the file myself.”

The Governor looked slightly nonplussed. “I do appreciate how you must have felt, and it was right to guard your wife against ... anything facetious or even a little embarrassing. What I don’t understand is why you returned to Nemaka a week before you were due. You two could have had that week—or longer, if you’d sent me a wire. You know that.”

Karen said nothing. She sat with her hands clasped wetly in her lap, her glance a little glassily on Andrew’s face. Watch him slide out of that, she thought faintly; he’ll do it.

After a brief glance at her he did, with truth and charm. “I’m afraid you and Marcia were the reason, Sir Wallace. If we’d arrived a week or so later, Karen would have been thrown straight into the Residency circle. I didn’t think that would be fair to her either. Far better for her to take in the Nemakan scene for a week and get to know the neighbors before you returned. I’m sure now that it was the right thing to do.”

“But Wallace and I aren’t ogres,” protested Lady Prichard.

“Certainly not,” said Andrew smoothly, “but I couldn’t be absolutely certain that you’d approve of my marriage, could I?”

Something passed between the three of them. Karen sensed it, even though it was gone within seconds. Sir Wallace fidgeted, smiled and nodded.

“I do see how you were situated. We’ll say no more about that aspect.”

“But there remains the rather astounding fact that you and Karen had no honeymoon,” said Lady Prichard with lifted brow. “We must do something about that Mustn’t we, Karen?”

Karen was in condition to use her voice; she smiled thinly across the table.

The older woman tapped Andrew’s wrist with her fore-finger. “A bride needs breathing space, Andrew. Coping with ordinary life and a brand-new marriage is rather much for any young woman, but Karen’s had even more than that to deal with. The climate and strangeness.”

Andrew’s smile was guarded. “What do you suggest?”

“Hill Lodge,” said the Governor promptly. “Our wedding present is a honeymoon at Hill Lodge. We’ll send out all the supplies you may need and definitely won’t worry you with anything at all during the first week. After that you might stay on for the rest of the month, only coming into Government Town when it’s imperative. Karen needn’t show up at all. She can forget we exist!”

Marcia Prichard turned a bright, enthusiastic glance upon Karen. “Won’t that be lovely? You’ll get your honeymoon after all. And I’m sure you need it What with the excitement of the wedding in England, the plane trip and landing here among such a crowd as we are, I’m quite sure you’ve been feeling strained and unnatural. I don’t mind admitting that I was utterly appalled when Wallace told me at lunch-time that even now you’ve been married hardly more than two weeks. And you haven’t had Andrew to yourself at all!”

In even tones, giving nothing whatever away, Andrew said, “It’s most generous of you both. I don’t quite know what to say, except that we shall be happy to accept as soon as it’s convenient.”

“Convenient!” exclaimed the Governor. “Can’t wait for that—there’s always something turning up. No, Andrew, we’ll make this definite. You’ll go this weekend—Saturday or Sunday, whichever you prefer. And our blessing and very best wishes will go with you.”

Inevitably the Governor called for more wine and offered a toast. He almost laughed with relief and pleasure, and Lady Prichard looked confident and just as happy as he about the gift she and the Governor had concocted between them. Neither thought it peculiar that Karen was silent. They probably thought she was shy, and no wonder ... poor child.

The rest of the evening wasn’t nightmarish for Karen; she was too stupefied to feel anything. Just one thought persisted dully in her brain. Andrew had accepted. He had actually felt they could face a week of each other’s unadulterated company in that isolated dream house on the hillside. All Karen was really sure of was that she herself couldn’t even contemplate it without a feeling of terror.

CHAPTER NINE

There was a storm during the night, and when dawn came a thick mist blanketed the house and the road dripped with nerve-wearing regularity. The smell of mud and waterlogged vegetation pervaded the house, till the sun began drying out the paths and flower beds; then the odor became sweetish, fading to the usual heavy fragrance by midday.

For the first time Karen bathed alone that morning. Poisonous fish or anything else she might meet in the lagoon were negligible compared with the problem just ahead. She wished there were more than one way to handle it, but there wasn’t. No one could help, because this was final and it had to be between the two of them.

She swam till she was tired, dried out, and swam again. Deliberately, she did not return to the house till twelve-thirty. She showered, put on a green and white frock, took a last dispassionate look at her face after she had used a little make-up, and went to the kitchen.

Min Gan was in despair. “I just have the lunch ready and there is a message that the tuan will not come. Please, there is a letter for the mem on the dining table.”

Karen found it and read it. “Am naturally busy clearing up several things and have ordered a sandwich here at the office. I may be a little late tonight for the same reason, but there’s no need to pack till tomorrow morning.”

It was a blow to the determination she had built up, but she stood it fairly well. She ate some salad, peeled an orange but left it on her plate, and then suddenly came to a decision. She washed her hands, took another look at herself in the bedroom mirror and decided it was now or never. In fact, it had to be now.

Feeling a little cold in spite of the wet heat of the day, she backed the small car and ran out on to the road. It was one-thirty and the houses were shuttered and dead-looking. Even the various government departments were closed tight against the sun, but she knew that some of the Nemakan clerks worked behind the blinds and shutters.

She parked under a tree, walked straight up the steps of the main government building and rapped on the door. It was opened by a uniformed guard, who at once stepped back to let her enter.

“Is Mr. Eliot in his office?” she asked.

“Yes, memtuan. I will tell him you are here,”

“No, it’s all right. I’ll go myself. Thank you.”

She passed him and went straight to Andrew’s door, paused only for a second before tapping on the panel. His “Come in” sounded perfunctory, but when he saw her there, slim in the crisp green and white, the honey-gold hair slightly ruffled by the breeze, her eyes large and dark and luminous with smudges beneath them, he came round the desk at once. But he didn’t say, “Good heavens, what are you doing here?” Perhaps he knew.

“You shouldn’t come out in the midday heat,” he said. “Sit down.”

“I’d rather stand. I ... I won’t keep you long.”

“Sit down, Karen,” he said steadily. “You’re not confronting some brute that might tear you apart if you relax. And don’t, for the love of Mike, say things you may regret. It wasn’t very sensible of you to come here like this.”

She did sit down because he more or less compelled it, but she felt too cold within, too wound up to be put off by his manner or by anything he might say. He was leaning back on the desk and she gazed resolutely at the wall behind him.

“I intended speaking to you at lunch-time. You decided not to come, and I thought it hadn’t better be postponed. I had no intention of making a scene, but I insist that you listen, and believe.”

“I’m listening,” he said, but he made no promise to believe. His voice lowered. “You’re such a child, Karen. I hate your hurting yourself like this.”

She had known it would be hard, but not this difficult. She drew in a dry lip and let it go again, took a breath that caught in her throat. “I’m not going with you to Hill Lodge. You must know that already.”

‘Let’s not be dogmatic about anything just now,” he said quietly. “The Prichards were good enough to think this out and make arrangements, and the best thing we can do is to start out and have our discussions right away from everyone else. I’m far more keen to get down to fundamentals than you are, and even waiting another day is almost unbearable.”

“I can’t go with you, Andrew!”

Sudden heat in his eyes, he said, “You can hardly expect me to go off for a honeymoon on my own, and I’m certainly leaving tomorrow morning for Hill Lodge. The coconut radio has been busy, and over lunch the wives will hear all about it. That’s only one reason for leaving Government Town with a big smile.”

“Where you’re concerned it’s the main reason,” she said bitterly. “But this time I don’t even care very much about appearances. I’ve got beyond it. I do feel sorry that ... that the Prichards...” She cut off the words, averted her head still more. “We have to end this farce, Andrew.”

“That’s the most rational thing you’ve said for a long time. We’ll carry on from there at about five-thirty this evening, after you’re rested. I’ll make a point of getting away on time, and come back here to finish off later in the evening. I think you’d better go now. You look washed out.”

She flashed him a very green glance “You’re always in command, aren’t you? You pull a few strings and impose your will, and everyone, including the idiot you married, behaves just as you intend them to. You can call your guard and put me out if you like...”

“That’s enough, Karen.” His mouth was straight, the grey eyes stern with a dark, fed-up look in them. “I want you to go because you’re in the sort of mood that’s quite wrong for any talk between us. This isn’t the place, anyway. If you like, I’ll take you home now and we’ll talk at once. But it wouldn’t be very wise, the way you’re feeling. Here in the town we’re hemmed in. Let’s get away and sort things out. If you’d only let yourself see straight, you’d realize that a spell at Hill Lodge is a heaven-sent chance for us. I’m pleading with you—do you realize that?”

“You ... pleading?” with a bitter little smile. “Even if it’s true it can’t make any difference. I daren’t think of being shut away at Hill Lodge with you.”

“That’s frank, anyway.” His tones had roughened. “We’re still going, though.”

“For once,” she said huskily, “you’re what you would call way off the beam. I’ve lived here in Nemaka with you for two and a half weeks and I’ve never been so utterly wretched in my life. I’ve known all along that we’d have to part, and the only reason I haven’t done anything about it is because I’m so trapped that I can’t move without everyone knowing what I’m up to. Till now, your reputation here and your career have tied me to doing only the conventional thing. I’m still willing, if you’ll agree, to receive an urgent telegram calling me to England, so that you can gradually write me off. But if you insist on going ahead with the arrangement for a ... a holiday at Hill Lodge, I’ll do something so drastic that even you will find it difficult to live it down.” She swallowed and lowered her head. “I ... I mean it, Andrew.”

He had made no attempt to interrupt, and even now she had finished speaking he did not hasten to reply. But eventually he said heavily, “You’re more of a coward than I thought you were. I’ve given you ample proof that I want you to be happy and to feel normal and right with the world, but you’re afraid to face Hill Lodge with me. Do you think girlish threats will change my mind?”

“I wouldn’t threaten you; it would get me nowhere at all. I’m merely warning you what to expect,” she said, drawing a jerky breath. “I believe you actually thought I’d go through with this nightmare up in the mountains, alone with you—anything for the great masterful Andrew and his ambitions. After all, I might be Lady Eliot one day, and isn’t that worth a bit of suffering? You ... you don’t know me. You know women—the sophisticated sort—but you slipped up when you married me. I’m not your type at all. It’s sad, but it’s true.”

“Be quiet. You’re only making matters a thousand times worse!”

“Does that hurt you—to know you’re not infallible, after all? I thought it might. You were sure you could make the wrong into a right, weren’t you? You’ve handled women like Marcia Prichard and Camilla Marchant; after them, I’d be easy. But I just don’t have their sense of values, and I’m not nearly as tractable as you thought. I’m not blinded by possible future glory, and I get no satisfaction whatever from our present way of living. My life was simple and happy before I knew you. It will never be that way again. You’ve done just that—for me.”

“Will you stop it!” he said savagely. “Goading yourself into hurling at me the worst things you can think of won’t do a scrap of good. You came here to tell me you’re not going to Hill Lodge tomorrow. You’ve done that, and now you’re leaving. I’ll take you myself.”

“You won’t!”

His eyes blazed at her for a moment, then he turned abruptly, pressed a buzzer and spoke into a telephone: “Have a driver outside to take Mrs. Eliot home.”

“What are you afraid of—that I’ll drive into the sea?” She jumped up, furious as well as mortally hurt. “That’s one thing you could never live down, isn’t it? Do you ever do anything without first considering what the little world of Nemaka might think about it? I very much doubt it And you honestly believed I’d smile cheerfully at the crowd tomorrow morning, go coy when they threw rice and blush becomingly as we drove away! What a priceless little fool you must think I am! Perhaps I have been, but I’m not any longer. I wouldn’t face Hill Lodge alone with you if the only alternative were a firing squad!”

“You’d better go,” he said tightly. “If you say much more I might forget to keep my distance. It’s happened before, you know.”

Those horrible kisses. Karen swayed a little, shrank, white-faced, from the hand he put out to steady her. She turned and went from the room, down the corridor and into the white heat of outdoors. A driver opened the car door, and Andrew was there, saying in level, warning tones, “Take it easy now. Lie down for a couple of hours.”

The driver gave a concerned smile. “The mem is unwell? It is the sun, Tuan—too hot for the mem at this time of day. I must leave the car and walk back?”

Andrew hesitated. “Yes, you’d better.”

Just sweet of him to trust her with it. He knew she was practically beaten. Karen closed her eyes, and did not open them again till the car stopped outside the house.

She went into her bedroom and lay down. Her eyes hurt, there was a stinging pain in her throat and her nerves stabbed like needles all over her body. She had never felt so done, so completely vanquished.

She was still feeling rocky, but had dressed and was in the living room when Mrs. Mears looked in at four. The plumpish doctor’s wife smiled and placed a chocolate cake on the table.

“I’ve come for tea. Do you mind?”

“Not a bit. I’m very glad. I’ll tell Anai.”

She came back, lifted the piece of white mosquito netting which covered the cake and complimented Mrs. Mears.

The older woman gestured that it was nothing. “As a matter of fact Andrew sent me a message about an hour ago. He said you were a little off-color and might like company, so I promised him I’d look in. He’d had to go to the Residency for a final session with the Governor.” She laughed gently. “We’ve all heard the news, of course, and none of us can claim that we guessed it in the first place! You and Andrew had us all fooled.”

“It was his idea.”

“It would be. Still, you’re going to get your honeymoon; we’re all happy about that.” Molly used a grass fan she had brought with her. “It’s always grillingly hot on a feast-day. All the servants will be off this evening, I suppose. If you feel as pale as you look, you won’t want to prepare anything. Would you like to come to dinner with us?”

“Thank you, but it won’t be necessary, Molly. Min Gan has prepared something; we can eat cold, and Andrew is bound to be very late, anyway.”

“And you’ll be packing, of course. It must be like getting married all over again.” Mrs. Mears looked at her, more keenly. “You poor dear; the heat has really got you, hasn’t it? If I were you I’d stay away from the crowd that’s going down to see the dancing tonight. You’ll have other opportunities of joining in the revels, and they do become a little monotonous. I’ll get Jake to send you over a sedative, so that you’ll feel wonderful when you set off tomorrow. Let me pour the tea, will you?”

Karen was glad to do so. She sat back and sipped and for the sake of politeness forced herself to swallow a finger of the chocolate cake. She heard insects droning in the bougainvillea outside, Molly’s voice, light and pleasant and undemanding. No one else would turn up now, thank heaven; although they were curious they probably hadn’t quite the courage to wade into Andrew’s house and put inquisitive queries to his wife.

The light began to fail and Anai came in for the tray. He wanted to know whether he and Min Gan had permission to leave the house as soon as the kitchen was clear. Karen said yes, and wished them an enjoyable evening.

Mrs. Mears stood up. “My boys will be itching to get away, too,” she said. “If Andrew is later than seven, do slip over for a bite with us.”

Karen repeated her thanks, and as soon as the doctor’s wife had gone she put a match to a couple of the lamps; the light from them was softer than electricity. For a long time she stood near the window, staring at the merging of day with darkness. A jacaranda-blue sky darkening to the purple of pansies, then a soft indigo with a star here and there. A hot, velvety sky, peculiar to the tropics.

She looked at her watch. Six-thirty. She ought to get some idea of the dinner Min Gan had prepared, but the very thought of looking at food made her feel sick. She could set the table, though, set it for one and pretend she’d already eaten. Pretend ... But there comes a time when you can’t pretend any longer, and Karen knew that for her that time was very near.

She found mats and some cutlery, paused suddenly as she heard running feet on the path, and gazed at Clive Vaughan as if he had burst through the wall instead or the doorway. His eyes stared, his hair had flopped forward in a lump over one eye and he breathed as fast and jerkily as if he had run the length of the island.

“Karen,” he managed. “She’s not here, is she? Has she been here? Rita?”

“No. No, she hasn’t. I haven’t seen her today at all. He turned instantly, apparently to run off somewhere else, and something clicked in her mind. “Clive! Where are you going?”

“I don’t know.” He slumped against the doorway. “I don’t know where to go. Rita’s missing. I’ve been to the Coppards and I called in at the McLennans on the way here. No one has seen her at all. Rita and I had lunch together ... I went back...”

He tailed off, and she asked quickly, “No note anywhere? No message of any kind? What about your servants?”

“They’ve gone off, but I caught the houseboy next door. He saw Rita at about three; she was smoking on the veranda.” Wearily he shoved the hair back from his forehead. “Where can I look for her? She’s never out as late as this, even with other women, and I’m sure she’s not interested in the fishing festival. I keep thinking she must have taken a walk and had an accident—maybe her ankle.”

Karen didn’t remind him that Rita never walked when she could use a government car, nor did she care to mention the farewell party on the Vesica. The Clive wasn’t aware that his wife even knew the men on the ship. And certainly Rita wouldn’t want him to know. But what a fool she was, lingering there so late that Clive was driven to running round to neighbors and advertising her absence.

“Perhaps that’s what did happen, Clive; a slight accident while she was walking. She may have had to get someone to help her, and that sort of thing takes time, if you happen to be outside town.” Surprised at the plausible tenor of her own voice, Karen added, “You ought to stay in the house, Clive, in case she turns up. One thing is certain, isn’t it? She couldn’t possibly get lost in Nemaka—not for long. It’s too well populated. Go home and have a drink, and as soon as Andrew comes in I’ll ask him what should be done.”

He shoved a grubby hand over his face. “Will you, Karen? I’d be so grateful. I thought of rousing the police myself, but they’ll jump to it much more quickly and thoroughly for Andrew. I hope to heaven she’s home when I get back.”

She wouldn’t be, Karen was sure. Once she had overstayed her limit Rita would be reckless. At this moment she was probably laughing and talking foolishly, as she always did when she took more than one drink; she would be in a mood and a condition when time didn’t matter. And Clive would find out the hard way how irresponsible she’d become. He’d wait and grow more and more fearful, perhaps hysterically stir up more of the houses. And some time Rita would show up, a good deal the worse for wear and capable of ruining his life and hers, completely.

Karen told herself that it wasn’t her business. She would tell Andrew when he came. But would Andrew have any patience with it, even though he had once prevented her from running away? He’d probably say he had enough domestic trouble of his own, thanks very much. Or something to that effect. And one detail Karen could not ignore. Out of the whole of Government Town she was the only person who knew where Rita was at this moment.

Did that make her responsible? she wondered. Was she bound in any way to keep silence? She walked across the room and back again, trying to recall whether she had ever promised Rita never to divulge her association with the man she called Captain Kidd. She hadn’t given her word, she was sure of that, but did a promise have to be spoken? Rita had obviously taken it for granted that she could trust Karen with her secret, and the fact was binding.

Clive was such a good sort that Rita’s treachery became blacker in Karen’s estimation as the minutes passed. She would certainly have to do something—but what? There was only one course, really, and it was no use edging away from it. She had to face the fact that Rita might have become really desperate, and that those men might have given her enough to drink to make her helpless; they wouldn’t know that one cocktail was Rita’s limit. Supposing, later on, that buccaneering type turned up at Clive’s house with an insensible Rita? Clive would be doomed in Government Town and Rita would hate herself and him for the rest of her life.

That mustn’t happen, Karen told herself. She would have to drive over to the waterfront and send someone out to the Vesica. The way things were, she thought with sad wryness, she could manage it without a soul knowing. It would not take her more than ten minutes to get to the quay, and at the outside the whole venture should be accomplished within an hour.

She moved quickly. If Andrew’s meal was brought to the table and covered, the coffee prepared so that he had only to switch on ... yes, that was it. She would leave the light on in her room and he would assume she had eaten and gone to bed. She wasn’t in the habit of sulking, had never shirked coming into a room where he was, however she felt. But today—that scene in his office—even he must regard it as rather exceptional. And he had again called her a coward, hadn’t he? Well, why not act it, the whole way? He might not come for at least half an hour and it would take another half an hour for him to shower and eat. By that time she would have returned. And if he heard the car and. came out to investigate ... well, it wouldn’t matter, once Rita was back. On the whole, she thought bleakly, she hadn’t much more to say to Andrew.

As she was, in a light frock and sandals, Karen went out to the car. She turned it, and drove straight along the coast road; it was a trifle longer this way, but the risk of meeting a government official was almost nil. There were the islanders, though, in increasing numbers as she progressed, so that the car was slowed to a crawling pace. In festival clothes, some of them eerily splendid, they were trooping towards the waterfront. Karen saw headdresses resembling colored fish and recalled, detachedly, that they were celebrating the height of the fishing season. If only they would move aside when they heard the car! But not they. To them she was a good-natured white person come to see the dancing and diving; strange that she should be alone, perhaps, but then white people did do strange things, and no doubt the white mem would meet her friends and enjoy the evening with them.

The nearer she came to the quay the more tightly packed the road. At last, within sight of the colored lanterns which marked the dancing arena, Karen drew in to the side of the quay and stopped the engine. She stepped out and, keeping her head down, she pushed her way through the noisy throng till she was near enough to the edge of the quay to scan the water. There were lights everywhere in the small natural harbor and it occurred to her, suddenly, that it might be far more difficult than she had thought to get someone to paddle out to the Vesica. She hadn’t reckoned with this milling humanity.

She looked about her, saw a smiling man in a faded sarong who stood deriving silent fun from the scene. They were all boatmen, these islanders, and he did look approachable. She thanked her stars the common language was English and fought her way to his side, saw his startled look as he realized this was a white woman almost at the quay’s edge, where white women never came.

“I wonder if you can help me,” she said, her voice sounding thin and girlish in her own ears. “I want to get in touch with a friend on a boat out there. I’ll pay someone to go out in a canoe with a message.”

He shook his head wonderingly. “There are no white people in the boats, memtuan. Only our own men who prepare for the diving. The people push—the mem is in danger so close to the water.”

“Please,” she said desperately. “I don’t mean the small boats. You know the Vesica—the white man’s boat? The big one which has been anchored out there for some weeks?”

“Ah yes.” He showed strong yellow teeth in a smile. “For many days I worked to build a bridge over the rocks and I dived to find the wreck.” An amused shrug. “We of Nemaka know all the wrecks near the coast. If there were treasures they would already have been found, many years ago! I have told these people...”

“Yes. I know—they’re giving up. But there happens to be someone on board the Vesica ... a friend I must get in touch with. Could you find a boatman who will go out to the ship for me?”

“The mem did not know?” he said, with exasperating serenity. “The Vesica sailed on the tide, half an hour ago.

“I ... I don’t see how it could have,” she whispered almost to herself. Then, more loudly, “It wasn’t due to sail till tomorrow or Sunday. Are you sure?”

With great deliberation the man turned and surveyed the light-spattered ocean. Then he pointed. “The mem can see the tiny lights, there to the right, far away? That is the Vesica. Soon even her lights will be gone.”

Somehow Karen thanked him and straggled away from the edge of the quay. Rita had gone, whether willingly or not might never be known. She had been gone half an hour—rather less than the time which had elapsed since Clive had burst into the living room, looking wild and lost. If she herself had acted at once, driven down here before the crowd was so thick. If ... if ...

Her head seemed to have been thrust into a tight steel band; the fantastic noise and prancing, the weaving lights, the smell of jasmine and frangipani, of smoking joss sticks, roasting pigs and coconut oil, combined to convert her own emptiness into a kind of vertigo. She couldn’t fight her way back to the car, couldn’t face the task of reversing and creeping inch by inch through the melee. It would be quicker to walk home; she didn’t feel capable of driving, anyway.

But walking against that tide of humanity was exhausting, particularly as she did not want to be recognized. Gradually she pushed into the low jungle of ferns and palm bush that edged the road. The masses of fronds were wet with dew and clung to her skirt, her feet squelched among decaying leaves, but it was far easier than walking on the road. She could see the people, brown-skinned, almond-eyed, full of gentle laughter or noisy anticipation. They meant to have a roaring time.

But soon the islanders thinned to a trickle and petered out. She could have the road to herself and put on speed. The breeze reminded her that she was sweating, a soreness in the ball of her foot recalled the extracted thorn; how long ago that seemed.

She saw a few lights; Government Road. A couple of minutes later she hesitated at the path to Andrew’s house, and then drew a breath and walked on, past the Mears’ and the McLennans’, Austin’s and Tony’s, the Coppards’ ... to the Vaughans, where a light shone in the living room. Here her heart almost failed her. If Clive collapsed she’d walk out. She’d have to. She was deeply sorry for the man, but he’d have to battle through the emotional part of it on his own.

She reached the veranda, raised a hand to rap at the door, then let it drop. Voices? Clive’s and ...

Swiftly she moved towards the open french window, stood well back and glanced into the room. Rita was there, lying back in a rattan chair with her foot raised to a stool, while the devoted Clive knelt beside her, jerkily bandaging an ankle that Karen knew instinctively was as sound as her own. Rita looked scared and shaken, though. Perhaps, out on that ship, she had had to make a decision, and Clive had won; the twisted ankle gambit wouldn’t have worked with any other man, but Clive would believe anything, so long as his Rita stayed with him. He was accustomed to torment.

But maybe he wouldn’t get so much more of it. It could be that Rita had at last learned her lesson, for as Karen watched, Clive looked up at his wife, and Rita, the cynical sensation-seeker, smiled faintly at him and slipped a hand over his hair. The gesture was a knife in Karen’s heart.

She turned and stumbled blindly along the path.

CHAPTER TEN

Andrew entered the house at his usual stride, but he looked tired as he dropped an almost empty briefcase on to a chair and poured a drink. It had been a long, wearing afternoon, but he had had no option but to go through with it, disposing of as much of next week’s work as was practicable in advance. The two or three hours at the Residency had been more of a grind than he’d ever known before, but there again, it had been necessary if he was to be absolutely free for a while. And heaven knew a period of complete freedom from his job had become imperative.

That look in her face, the despair in her tones. Worse the hatred of his touch. If only she’d let herself see the sense of their getting away from Government Town; but she’d changed so much that nothing really got through to her. She just would not give in. And God, how he loathed those scenes, her pain and stubbornness.

He went to the table and lifted a cover, looked with distaste at the cold chicken and salad, and dropped the cover back into place. The servants were off, of course, but he wasn’t hungry. He’d take a shower, and maybe they’d have some coffee together. But for the love of Mike, no more vitriol. He’d had enough. Even a suffocating silence was more bearable.

He passed her door, saw the light under it and hesitated, as he had hesitated many times before. She must know he was in, and it wasn’t like her to shut herself away before bedtime. Still, that had been quite a spat this afternoon? she’d worked herself up for it and hadn’t looked too well afterwards. Molly Mears’ note to him at the Residency had been reassuring, but it was possible Karen had put on a determined show of normality for the doctor’s wife. She must feel as raw as he did.

He went back and tapped on the door. “Are you all right, Karen?”

No reply; but she always said something, if it was only “Leave me alone”, he thought with weary cynicism. He opened the door, saw that the room was empty and at once looked into the bathroom and the kitchen.

“Karen!” he called sharply along the corridor.

Even to the unfanciful Andrew the house seemed to give back a sinister echo. He went down into the garden and saw the small car was gone, felt a chill run along his spine but ignored it. He strode back to her room, flung open the wardrobe. Nothing missing, so far as he could tell; and then the chill moved and gripped his heart. He’d bought most of her clothes, so she wouldn’t take them, would she? Valiant, her head in the air, penniless ... that was the way she’d plan to leave. But she’d have to use the car he’d supplied because she had no other mean of transport.

“I’ll do something drastic ... I mean it, Andrew.”

The color had gone from under his tan, leaving his face sallow, his eyes very dark. He got into the big car and set it moving, swung left and shot along the length of Government Road and over the hill towards the quay. He met the crowds and they parted for him; the Governor and Tuan Eliot could always be certain of a fairly quick passage through any throng. He stopped at the back of the quay, shouldered his way to the little brick office of the harbormaster. The place was locked, as he had expected, but the old Nemaka official was close by, looking slightly peculiar in festive gear—a bright sarong and a white headcloth.

“Lim Nai!” he called abruptly. “At what time did the Vesica pull out?”

“On the tide tuan. It would be fifteen minutes past six.”

“Any trouble of any kind? Anything unusual?”

“I do not think so, tuan, but there were so many people here I cannot be sure. Nothing was reported.”

“Did they take passengers?”

“I do not know, tuan.”

Andrew nodded and turned to go back. If he hadn’t been head and shoulders above the islanders he wouldn’t have seen the small car tucked away at the corner where the road met the waterfront, but he did see it, and within seconds he had cleared a way for himself and was looking into the empty interior of the car. That emptiness was so shockingly final that for a moment he couldn’t move. Only for a moment, though.

He got back to his own car, slid behind the wheel and started the engine. He arrowed his way through the crowd and up on to the road, driving automatically while his brain worked out what he must do. The government launch was fast, but the guard would not release it without an official permit. And the permit would have to be on government paper. The thing was easy enough—his own signature would suffice—but the offices were closed and getting hold of keys would take time. Far better to go home and write out something; there’d be a sheet of official paper in his desk, or something that might do instead. As soon as the launch was moving they could contact the Vesica by radio; it could be stopped anywhere in these waters by government order.

He trod hard on the accelerator, and for the first time in his years of colonial service he damned the red tape that demanded a permit for one to follow one’s wife and bring her back.

He braked precipitately on his own drive and ran into the house. He was halfway through the living room before he saw the crumpled little handkerchief on the rug, the forlorn muddy tracks of small sandals across the polished floor. He stopped suddenly, felt a sick relief that made him press a hand to his eyes for a minute. Then he went on, through the passage. Her room door was wide open, the room empty, but on the floor lay a dress which looked as if it had been dragged through a swamp. And from the bathroom came the searing murmur of muted weeping. The sound was unbearable, and he took a grip on himself before pushing the door wide open.

She sat on a stool, drying feet from which she had washed the mud, and she wept as a quiet little girl might, helplessly but without using a handkerchief. She was pale, and the tears ran off the tip of her nose as she bent.

She became aware of him and her movements ceased for an instant. Then she drew the housecoat closer about her, turned her head from him and hastily flicked a finger across her eyes. The gesture was youthful and infinitely touching.

“I’m sorry,” she managed, with admirable coolness though her voice was throaty. “I was just getting ready for bed. I’ll clear away the wet towels and bring fresh ones.”

He didn’t lift her to her feet, but waited till she stood up. Then he put the handkerchief from his top pocket into her hand, and very gently he held her stiffening shoulders and looked down at her.

“I’ve been dreading and longing to hear you cry,” he said. “I used to listen at night, hoping to hear tears of defeat—what you would call defeat. If I’d heard them I’d have come to you, Karen; I’d have had to. No, don’t try to get away. We’re beyond that now. You’ve nothing to fear from me; you must know that.”

“I ... I’m very tired.”

“I know you’re whacked, but that fighting mood you were in at lunch-time is no good to either of us. We’ve got to get things straight, and the way you are now is the best time to do it. It might help you a little to know that you’re not the only one who’s been through hell—only yours was a different kind from mine, and at no time did you have to face the peculiar and terrible fear that I might run out on you.”

Very slightly, she raised her head. “I shan’t do anything like that. I wouldn’t, even if it were easy to get away. It wouldn’t be fair.”

“Thanks. That’s a very good reason.” He suppressed the sardonic note in his voice, and said, “This isn’t the best place for a talk, is it? I don’t suppose you had any dinner?”

“I’m not a bit hungry. I did put out some supper for you, though, and the coffee is ready in the percolator. You only have to switch on.”

“Let’s both switch on, shall we? Karen!” as she tried to slip from his hold; to keep her there he had to tighten his fingers. “This had to come and you can’t evade it by locking yourself in your room. At the very least, I’ve a right to know what’s been happening this evening.”

“This evening?” she echoed, her head still bent. Then she must have realized that he had seen the ruined frock. “I ... went for a walk.”

“I want it from the beginning. This isn’t my first time home, you know. I arrived half an hour ago.”

A pause, while it penetrated. “I didn’t know that. I ... I suppose you saw the car was gone.”

“That you were gone too,” he said. “Where were you?”

“I went for a drive and was caught fast in the festival crowd. So I had to leave the car and walk back.”

In spite of the iron control he was imposing on himself, Andrew’s voice sharpened. He dropped one hand and with the other grasped her elbow. “Come into the living room. We have to get this quite clear, and I can see that even your tears weren’t really the answer—for me, anyway.”

She walked beside him on bare feet, a small figure in a thin blue housecoat. Her lashes were still wet, but the tear-stains were fading, leaving her pale and resigned-looking. But she wasn’t quite subdued enough to sink into the chair he placed for her. She stood beside the table, her hands clasping her arms within the loose sleeves, mandarin-fashion.

“I don’t mind your knowing exactly what happened,” she said in a colorless voice. “I’m quite sure you won’t say anything to Clive Vaughan.”

“Vaughan! What, for the love of heaven, has he to do with us?”

“It was Rita. You see ...” Baldly, she told him all the facts she could remember, and finished, “Perhaps it was rather juvenile, but I always had the feeling that in chasing after that man Rita was trying to prove something—possibly to herself. When ... when I saw her through the window a little-while ago, I was sure she’d succeeded.”

His jaw was hard as he demanded, “What in the world made you feel you were responsible for Rita Vaughan? She’s Clive’s headache, not yours. You should have told him what you suspected and let him go on from there. You,” he reiterated, “a young, unsuspecting stranger, to be saddled with that sordid business. And to tramp all the way from the quay in the dark. I’ve never heard anything like it in my life!”

“You must say nothing to Clive,” she said, more quickly. “I took it on myself to go down there, and neither Clive nor Rita knows about it. I don’t want them ever to know.”

“And what about me? How do you suppose I felt when I got here and you’d gone heaven knew where? To me there was only one answer. If you remember, you threatened round lunch-time to do something drastic. I thought you’d heard the Vesica was leaving and managed to get them to give you a passage!”

The blue-green eyes wide and shadowed, she stared at him. “But how could you think a thing like that of me? I was terribly sorry even when I put you in the position of having to ask Dr. Wilmot why I’d attended the hospital. Did you really think I’d just escape, without a word?”

“My dear girl, the way we are I could think anything. I went straight down to the quay and found your car. The Vesica had gone, and so had you. I had every reason to think the worst. I came back here to write out a permit for the use of the government launch. I was coming after you.” There was still a curb on his anger, but just faintly his teeth snapped. ‘As it happens, it was lucky we’re sticklers for red tape where government property is concerned. Otherwise I’d have been out at sea by now!”

“You can’t really blame me for your own thoughts, can you?” she said with a dreary little shrug. “By something drastic I meant ... perhaps I’d go to Lady Prichard and tell her you ... we’re not suited.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” he clipped out, hollowly, and shoved his hands into his pockets.

Quite a long moment passed before he spoke again. “I suppose back there in the bathroom you were weeping romantic tears for Rita Vaughan?”

“No,” huskily. “While I was cleaning the leaves from my legs I just began to cry.”

“But it was the sight of Rita looking cosy with Clive that started you off,” he persisted, his glance keen. “It may have been subconscious, but you compared the scene you saw through the window with a few scenes you’ve had with me. You wondered why that couldn’t happen to you—a man at your feet. Any man, so long as he wouldn’t be awkward in his demands; a dumb adorer is what you want, not a husband.”

She let out a quivering sigh. “You’re being cruel again. I can’t help being the person I am. You just didn’t take long enough to get to know me.”

“How right you are.” Angry with himself now, he drew in his lip. His tones were less steady than usual. “I can assure you that if it were as easy as falling on my knees at your feet, I’d have done it long ago. And if it were simply a matter of telling you a thousand times a day that I’m in love with you, I’d have done that too. But from me you don’t want either. You just want your freedom. Well, I don’t give up as easily as that. We’re going to Hill Lodge tomorrow.”

“I see. And when we come back?”

“We’ll come back married.”

Her hands, still within the sleeves, were suddenly burning hot. Her mouth trembled, but before she could reply he was talking again, with bewildering urgency.

“Don’t answer that. All I really meant was that that’s what I want, and it’s what I’m desperately hoping you’ll want too. I know you’ve magnified a good many things you’ve heard since you came here, and it’s hurt you that I wouldn’t do any explaining. I’m afraid that I needed far more from a wife than you were willing or able to give—blind trust, for one thing.”

“I was certainly blind in the way I trusted you in England.”

“That’s the hell of a thing to say! You told me you were in love with me—you were shy about it and I’m not even sure you knew what it meant, but you certainly said it.”

She moistened her lips. “You said the same, and there was nothing shy about you. A ... a minute ago you said you could have told me a thousand times a day since we’ve been here. That’s been the root of the trouble. You’re capable of putting on any kind of act you please, for your own ends, and if I were to stay with you I’d never know if there were anything real in our relationship, or whether I were living a sham life for the sake of your career.”

A pallor showed about his mouth. “All right. You win. You want proof and I’ll give it to you. I’ll resign from the Service and take you back to England. We’ll settle at Welhayes and make something of the estate. I can’t be free for a few months yet, but you’ll have it to look forward to.”

Her hands fell to her sides, her lips parted and she gazed at him in utter consternation. “You ... you can’t do that,” she breathed. “I couldn’t possibly demand a thing like that of you, or live with it myself. You belong just where you are. I’m the one who’s out of place.”

“Your place is with me,” he said abruptly, “but if you resent my job...”

“I don’t. I don’t even resent the fact that it has to come first sometimes. What I can’t bear is ... is the reason you married me, the reason you won’t let me go.” She paused and looked at him pleadingly, but he said nothing and she asked quietly, “Is that what you were after—my hurried refusal of your sacrifice?”

He shook his head and spoke a little thickly. “Every day since we arrived here I’ve spent hours wondering just how I could get through to you, make you believe I love you and get an unreserved admission from you that you love me. I was determined to make no explanations and no apologies till I was sure of you. Perhaps it was foolish and autocratic, but I was almost fanatically opposed to outside influences making any difference whatsoever to you and me. Either you loved me or you didn’t; the things that happened before we met couldn’t alter that. Discovering them might hurt you just a little, but it couldn’t possibly lessen what you felt for me.” He sounded a little bitter as he ended, “You couldn’t believe in that kind of reaction from me, could you? You’d already decided I wasn’t capable of the youthful romance you were ready for, and wanted. But you didn’t marry a boy; you married a man who thought he knew exactly what he was doing.” He paused, and ended a little roughly, “Well, there it is. I won’t face living without you. I promise I’ll take you back to England and do my utmost to make you happy for the rest of my life. I don’t even have to make the choice between you and my job. The fact that I love you so much has made it for me.”

Karen swallowed painfully, looked into his eyes and felt some hard thing beginning to crumble away, inside her. “I ... I don’t know what to say.”

“That’s a change. Say nothing. We’re about two strides apart. I’m not going to stipulate that you come halfway, but for heaven’s sake don’t shrink back. I can’t stand any more of it!”

She moved hardly at all, and the next second his arms were round her, gently, though his fingers were excruciatingly tight on her shoulder. He just stood there, his cheek against her hair and the feel of her in his arms.

“Andrew,” she whispered eventually.

“Stop worrying,” indistinctly. “There’s nothing whatever to be afraid of.”

“I’m not frightened—not very. Please look at me.”

He drew back his head, saw a tremulous smile on her lips, and sparkling, tear-filled eyes that were full of incredulity and entreaty and need. With hardly any explanation or apology, he had got the surrender he’d wanted with such angry desperation. But there was no anger in him now; only passion and tenderness and an immeasurable thankfulness.

They left earlier on Saturday morning than they had at first intended, and half the people who came out to wave goodbye and throw flower petals were in their dressing gowns. So were the Governor and Lady Prichard; they blew kisses to Karen from their balcony, and as the car sped away from the Residency they told each other that they couldn’t have given those two a more valued wedding present. Karen was radiant, and Andrew ... well, they wouldn’t have believed he could look so serene.

To Karen, as she sat beside Andrew, he looked handsome and arrogant and incredibly dear. And when he gave her a sideways glance and a wink she knew there would never be another time just like this; the new and glorious knowledge of each other, the sensation of beginning the splendid, passionate adventure of shared living.

Halfway to Hill Lodge they stopped for an icy cold drink from one of the coolers. At least, Andrew said that was why they were stopping, though warm kisses seemed to be more in demand than a cool beverage.

She lay back at last in the shade of a tree, and looked up into his face. Mischievously she said, “Now that your male ego is appeased by my admitting, in no uncertain terms, that I think you’re the most wonderful man in the world, we might have that little talk, don’t you think? You did get your own way, you know, in the most dastardly fashion. But I still feel I’m entitled to an explanation. In fact, I still think you married me because you needed a wife out here.”

He smiled down at her, flicked at a honey-gold curl. “I have to confess it was one reason. You heard rumors, but I didn’t know the whole truth behind them. Not long before I went on leave, Sir Wallace made the genial remark at one of our meetings that if I were married I’d be leaving Nemaka some time for a top job elsewhere. Afterwards he saw me privately and repeated it, much more seriously. I told him, half in jest, that I’d see what I could do about it in England. The whole of Government Road heard about it and during my last few days I was treated to facetious remarks and given names and addresses of suitable women. What none of them knew, except the Prichards and myself, was that when I dined at the Residency a couple of nights before I left, I found that the Governor had discussed the business very thoroughly with Marcia, and that she had decided I must get to know a niece of theirs.” He shrugged. “You know Marcia; she married the Governor when he was a young official and helped to push him into the position he now holds. She’s very fond of him, but I think it’s true to say she’d be fond of any man she might have chosen so long as he lived up to her expectations in a worldly way. That happens to be her nature.”

“What about this niece? Who was she? Where did she live?”

“Hold on, I’m coming to that. You have to appreciate the nuances of the situation. Marcia and I were very good friends and she knew that at that time the Service was the most important thing in my life. You’ve called me ambitious, and I suppose I was—but no more so than if I’d been a doctor or an architect. Whatever my profession, I’d have gone all out to get to the top. Personally, I can’t see anything wrong in it, but since you do...”

“Not so much, now. I just didn’t want to be a sort of rung on the ladder.”

He laughed. “I think you’re now convinced that you re a trifle more than that! Anyway, when I left Nemaka to go on leave I was stuck with a promise to get in touch with the Honorable Letitia Felman.” He gave a rather too masculine imitation of Lady Prichard’s smooth, cultured tones: “ ‘Just the wife for you, Andrew. She has breeding, a level head, a fine, sporting Gloucestershire background and two brothers in the Guards. Bring her back as your wife, or even as your fiancée, and marry her here. Both the Governor and I would be immensely pleased.’ ” He dropped the mimicry, and smiled. “I had to keep the promise, so I did it at once. I met the honorable young lady and found nothing wrong with her. She was twenty-six, not bad-looking, had a good skin and rather nice brown hair; you can tell I had a really good look at her! I might have liked her a little better if she hadn’t been quite so poised and certain of herself, but even then I wouldn’t have fallen in love with her. She had too obviously been educated for some sort of position in life; as a diplomat’s wife, perhaps, or even a politician’s. She was like Marcia—admirable in almost every way but deficient in humanity.”

“Did you see her often?”

“Once at her London house, and then her father invited me down to Gloucester for a weekend. It was more than enough. She must have written at once to Marcia, because within three weeks I had a letter from the Governor, telling me his wife was inviting Letitia Felman to Nemaka as their guest, and they would like me to escort her when my leave was over. I’m afraid that made me mad. I at once replied that the girl was nice but she left me cold; that they needn’t invite her for me and that in any case I’d prefer not to commit myself even to the extent of escorting her. After that I was treated to frigid silence.”

“Gracious. I’ll bet you wondered what you were in for!”

“I didn’t care enough for it to spoil my leave, but I did get to thinking about the future. This is the part you’re going to dislike, my sweet.”

“Then you’d better hold my hand while you tell me.” He did hold it, between both of his, and as he spoke he watched her face as she lay looking up at the vivid green fans of the palms.

“I knew the Governor had been right when he said that to increase my chances of quick promotion I needed a wife of the right sort, so I started looking up old friends whom I knew to have sisters. You have to realize that I didn’t expect to fall in love; the best I expected was to find someone mature who’d be a help in my career and a good companion besides. Sounds cold-blooded, doesn’t it?”

“Horribly.”

“I knew you wouldn’t like to hear it. Now you can see why I wouldn’t go into all this till we were close.”

“You’d better finish, though.”

“The ending is slightly better,” with a smile in his tones. “Bang in the middle of these experiments I paid a duty visit to Welhayes, intending to spend one night with my aunt and uncle. I met the Karen child and stayed three weeks. I’d have hung on longer, but I was already booked for a trip with some friends to Scandinavia, and after thinking things over...”

“Cold-bloodedly.”

“Let’s call it sanely, this time. I decided to make the trip to Scandinavia and use the time as a breathing space. After all, you weren’t really what I was looking for. You were anything but mature, you hadn’t had a single love affair. The few times I’d kissed you you responded like a shy little girl, and you were obviously certain that marriage was the outcome of a long and anything but passionate friendship.”

“You looked me over as a possibility, though, didn’t you—during those three weeks?” she asked the palms.

“There was nothing deliberate about it, though I admit it delighted me that you could be convincingly adult and restrained as well as gay and excitable. During those two weeks we were apart I decided I wanted you and could make you happy. Common sense told me that although you might eventually become the right sort of wife, you were too young, innocent and inexperienced. But the fact was that not only had I forgotten what the other girls I’d taken out looked like, but almost without knowing it I’d stayed at Welhayes for three whole weeks just for the pleasure of seeing you every day and enjoying your reactions to all sorts of things. I kicked myself a hundred times for not visiting Welhayes right at the start of my leave, so that we could have known each other for several months before coming to a climax. Well, you know what happened next.”

She nodded, still without looking at him. “You told me we were going to be married at once.”

“I couldn’t ask you, because I was quite sure you’d have hedged, and insisted on an engagement. It was then less than three weeks to the end of my leave, and I’m just not the sort to leave a fiancée behind, or even take one with me.”

“But you wanted to turn up here with a wife so that the Prichards couldn’t try any more of the Letitia tactics.”

“I won’t deny that it came to my mind, but it wasn’t terribly important. A fiancée would have taken care of that particular situation. Maybe I plan things in too much detail; I don’t know. I only know that at that time what I was doing seemed right, for your sake. You were to have the week here before the Prichards returned from their tour so that you’d feel you belonged. I wasn’t at all sure whether the Governor and Marcia were my friends or my enemies, but I was darned sure you weren’t going to suffer at their hands in any way. As it turned out, time had healed the breach slightly, and you yourself did the rest. Because you’re pretty and young and teachable, they both took to you.”

There was a silence before she said, “Wasn’t there ... perhaps, some other reason for our leaving England the day we married?”

He ran a gentle finger over her wrist. “You probably know it already. I didn’t have to question my feelings; I’ve known other women and not one of them had stirred me as you did, or made me feel I had to take care of them, so I was sure of myself. But the whole thing was a first time for you. If you remember, you were in a most peculiar state during these last few days before the wedding. You were feverish, uncertain half the time and terribly keyed up. It was all too sudden; I could tell that from the moment I mentioned marriage—and I felt very responsible for the emotional stress I’d caused. Maybe that was when I made my first mistake; I thought you’d become accustomed to the idea of being married to me during the two-day plane trip, but you didn’t. I caught you looking at me many times as if I were a terrifying stranger.”

“I think you were, a bit, but I loved you.”

“It didn’t show.” He gave her wrist a little shake. “I don’t think you even remember those last few days before we were married.”

“Not very clearly.”

“What about the night I kissed you in the garden?”

“I remember that!”

“Lord, so do I.” He shook his head reminiscently. “There was moonlight on your face, and your hair was soft and cloudy and sweet-smelling. You trustingly lifted your lips for the usual light kiss, and you got something so different that your heart began to hammer and you tore yourself away and bolted into the house. It was just about four days before we were to marry! I practically ripped the engine from the car as I drove home.”

“Don’t remind me of those things. You make me feel such a baby.”

“You’re a darling baby,” he murmured, and bent over and kissed her very much as he had kissed her that night—her mouth and neck and throat. Her heart quickened alarmingly, but it was a delicious sensation and she hadn’t the smallest urge to escape!

Presently he said, “I behaved like a boor over Tony, didn’t I? I was in the mood to be jealous of any man who could get a smile out of you.”

“We’ll make it up with him, won’t we?”

“Didn’t you notice him waving us off this morning? Quite a sentimentalist, old Tony. I’m sure he believes in honeymoons. Didn’t look as if he bore a grudge, did he?”

“Of course he doesn’t. He wants us to have just what we’ve got.”

For a moment she wondered whether to tell Andrew of the conversation she had overheard on her first night, and then she decided it was one of the things which could wait; there were several, really, and none of them were important now. Except perhaps one.

She asked casually, “How serious was the affair between you and Camilla Marchant?”

“Hey, now! Affair is a strong word.”

“Is it? How strong?”

“There are degrees, but even a mild affair means love-making and a bit of an obsession with one’s partner. Nothing of that kind ever happened between Camilla and me.”

“Then why should she think you were in love with her before that slightly unsavory business of her father’s?”

“Who told you that?”

“Camilla.”

“Camilla!” He sat up and stared at her. “She actually spoke to you on those lines? I didn’t think it possible she would ever go that far. When was it?”

“I’ve only seen her twice, and each time it was in our house. When she came in her new car—remember? She ... she left her scarf behind.”

Karen wished she hadn’t mentioned it; he looked so angry.

“When did you see it?” he asked.

“That was when I trod on the thorn. I came into the veranda and the scarf was on the table and you ... you looked fed up.”

“I’m afraid I looked fed up most nights. You stole away, I suppose? It didn’t occur to you that all I wanted was to feel you needing me?”

“I’ll atone,” she promised softly. “What about the scarf?”

“I found it in the garden. I was going to leave it in the veranda, but then I thought she might come to the house for it, and I didn’t want that. I meant to send it down to the Colonel’s house, but I shoved it into a drawer and forgot it.”

“You didn’t care for her at all?”

“Care is the wrong word. Camilla has never been really likeable. When I first knew her I thought she was attractive and very unfortunate. I used to go to their place sometimes and she was rather clever at being lively and ladylike while suggesting that she was really very lonely and brave. I got along well with the Colonel. He’s a bit of a rogue, but a character, and he seemed genuinely distressed that Camilla had no one of her own class as a friend. It didn’t cost me a thing to invite her up to some of our functions and she was very gay company. I thought she rated a little attention, but I noticed she’d cling a bit when people were watching, and that made me careful. I’m the last person to drop a woman because her father loses caste, but I was relieved to do so with Camilla. I did go down there whenever they invited me, but that was all.”

“I feel just a wee bit sorry for her now.”

“I’m afraid I don’t. I’ve learned too much about her just lately. I can’t think of anyone else I’ve ever known who’d try to break up a new marriage. She was actually thinking along those lines before we got here.”

“Good heavens,” she said soberly. “How did you find it out?”

“In my room...” he grinned and amended: “In my old room I’ve always kept a photograph of Welhayes. When we got back there was an identical frame containing an enlarged snapshot which had been taken at some picnic. It was the only photograph in which Camilla appeared with me and Anai told me she brought it to the house and told him to put it beside Welhayes. I questioned him and found she’d been there before, during my leave, and persuaded him to let her have a look at the other frame, so that she could get it copied.”

“But that would have been before she knew you were married.”

“It was after she’d heard that she brought the framed snapshot to the house—as a wedding gift, she told Anai. Later, when she turned up while you were alone, I began to realize it was a little more serious than I’d thought” He lifted his shoulders. “I suppose after they’d pinned that discrepancy in the government accounts on the Colonel’s former clerk she planned to get back to our former friendliness. Then suddenly I spoiled everything by marrying you. She felt cheated and vindictive. She was always wilful and packed, with grand ideas, and it probably seemed poetic justice that she should get in on the ground floor, so to speak, as a friend of mine. I wanted no trouble—in fact, at that time I had more than enough!—so I did mention to Rawling that it would be a kind gesture to invite Camilla and her father up for a film show one evening, just to show we were sorry for having dropped them.”

“What I still can’t understand,” said Karen, rather low-voiced, “is your letting her get away with things. It’s not like you.”

“I wanted no more problems. She was getting it all out of her system and I thought I was the only one who knew about it. It certainly didn’t bother me till,” he hesitated, “till the night of Cath Rawling’s party, when she told me she’d seen you talking with the men off the Vesica. I’d been trying pretty hard all that day to get us on an even keel, and I’m afraid I felt that was very nearly the last straw. Later that night, I did more or less convince myself that you wouldn’t have been alone when you met those men and it would certainly have been accidental, but the next morning I went along to see the Colonel, and told him that Camilla was going haywire. To give him his due, he was annoyed and apologetic, and he told me she’d been ... well, he called it behaving like her mother ... ever since the questionable business of the accounts. Before that, she’d evidently built herself up for marriage in Government Road.”

“With you?”

“Heaven knows. It makes my flesh creep to think about it!”

She smiled. “You’re forgiven for whatever you did feel for her. She’s quite beautiful.”

“Not nearly so beautiful as you are, and she’s gone at the core. I’m happy to tell you that her father is going to ship her off to his sister in Singapore. She’ll hitch up there in no time. Now forget her.” He bent again and looked down at her. “This is our honeymoon, my lovely darling. You’re all mine, and for a while there need be no one else in the world but you and me.”

“Tell me again that you love me.”

He said it simply, his face dark and intent, his hands possessive as they held her. And Karen believed. This was worth all the doubts and anguish, this ecstatic sequel to her primrose wedding.

THE END