Bonds of Matrimony (8 page)

'My mother was Greek. Naturally I have some of her ideas—'

'Naturally!'

She sat up very straight. 'If you're going to be beastly--! But I suppose you'll marry somebody modern, someone you can show off socially, and I wish you joy of her! If you stay out here, she won't need to be able to cook!'

'Oh, I don't know,' he said. 'There may be servants to be had at the moment, but life is changing, even here.'

Hero disdained to answer. She drank her coffee down at a single gulp and gasped as the hot liquid burned her inside as it went down.

'Serves you right!' Benedict said easily. 'You're so sure you know all that there is to know about me-'

'I do not! I know you're ever so clever, and I know now what you're doing in Kenya, but I don't know anything else about you.' She added, 'And I don't want to!'

'Then don't keep fishing for information! It isn't seemly to go on about my future wife, when I've only been married to you for twenty-four hours!'

'Then you shouldn't have told me about her.'

'Perhaps I don't mean what I say, any more than you do,' he said blandly. 'You once told me you were never going to get properly married because you much preferred being on your own!'

Hero swept him a speaking glance and turned her attention back to the scenery outside, trying to hide the inner turmoil his words had evoked. It was true that she

had never considered marriage for herself before she had known him. She had thought that she would never want to marry, that no man could stir her emotions sufficiently for her ever to want to marry. But now she knew that the right man would sweep her off her feet and she wouldn't be able to help herself.

She turned her head to find him studying her with a speculative air, as if he had every right to look his fill at her. Her eye kindled. She tossed her head in the air to show him she didn't care what he did.

'I wish you'd look where you're going!' she exclaimed.

He laughed. 'Never mind,' he said. 'There's Meru now. It won't be much further to Isiolo and home. Are you looking forward to being back?'

'In a way.' She thought of the state of the farm as she had last seen it. 'You did say you wanted to make the desert blood, didn't you?'

'Is it as bad as that?'

She nodded. 'Worse!'

'Oh well, I expect we'll be able to knock it into some kind of shape—'

'I didn't think about misleading you then/ she tried to explain. She took a deep breath. 'I misled you badly, but I didn't mean to - at least, in a way, I didn't. I'm afraid you're going to be very disappointed in the farm.'

He did not seem put out. 'I already knew about the effects of the drought. In fact, I wouldn't have wanted the farm if it hadn't been affected.'

She wondered if he really had an idea of the exact state of the farm. But he would soon know. She leaned forward in her seat and caught her first glance ever of Isiolo from the air. She recognized immediately the Sacred Heart of

Jesus Church and the extraordinary pink fort-like building that was the local branch of Barclay's Bank, standing out like something out of Beau Geste amongst the small corrugated-iron dukas, the shops that supplied most of the needs of the huge area they were expected to serve.

'You've been here before, haven't you?' she brought out quickly, unable to resist the temptation of questioning him any longer.

'To Isiolo? No, never.'

'To Kenya?'

'Yes, I was here last year. I came as a tourist and did all the usual things, like the game reserves. The drought had already bitten pretty deep and I had some ideas about the problem which I wanted to put into practice. That was easier said than done. I thought UNESCO might back me, but their resources are severely restricted. They were prepared to send me to Kenya, they'll even allow me to combine my own project with their work, but I had to find the land for myself.'

'And now you've done so?'

'Yes, and got a wife into the bargain,' His tone was mocking. 'But my time will be so restricted. I have to do their work too. That's what the plane is for, and most of the other equipment I shall be using.'

The plane began to lose height, preparatory to coming down on the landing strip her father had laid out beside the dry bed of the river.

'If you tell me what to do, I can help you,' she offered, a little afraid he would think she was being merely impertinent.

'I thought you wanted to hurry on to England?'

She hesitated. 'Well, yes,' she murmured, 'but I don't have to go yet. There are lots of things I can do. I can do the accounts, and I know about the cattle and everything. I'd like to help.'

For a moment she thought she saw a look of satisfaction cross his face. Was this what he had intended all along?

'It'll only be for a year,' she put in quickly, in case he should get the wrong impression of her offer.

'But of course,' he agreed, as though he were not too concerned, which somehow nettled Hero. 'I never thought anything else!'

The effects of the drought were worse than Hero had remembered. The trees her parents had planted round the house drooped, red with dust, over the remnants of what had once been the garden. Even the roses, her mother's favourites and therefore the recipients of special care, had died and were reduced to a few sticks poking out of the ground.

Hero did her best not to look at the devastation, knowing how much the sight would have hurt her mother, but strode resolutely on to the verandah that ran along the front of the house.

'I'll show you your room,' she said to Benedict. She led the way through the darkened hall, throwing open a door at the far end of the passageway. Her heart banged against her ribs as she raised the blinds and the sunlight flooded into the room, revealing the king-sized double bed her parents had shared and the shabbiness of the few other pieces of furniture that had once housed her parents' clothes.

Benedict came to a full stop in the doorway, frowning at the saccharine-sweet ikons that decorated the walls. Following his glance, Hero flushed. She had grown used to the stylized representations of Our Lady of the Sign and Christ Pantocrator over the years. They were a far cry from those ikons painted on wood of which they were the pale imitations, turned out by the thousand on cheap, shiny paper, and probably printed in Italy and not in Greece at all. Not even her father had been able to share Hero's mother's devotion to these holy objects, but he had put up with them because it was seldom indeed that his wife had seen the inside of the Greek Orthodox Church in Nairobi, and because she was fond of them.

'She only had one real ikon,' Hero tried to explain.

'I've got it in my room, but I'll bring it back if you like?'

'Wouldn't you prefer to have this room yourself?' he asked her.

She shook her head. 'It's the best room,' she said shyly, 'but I prefer mine. I have all my things there, and I chose the curtains myself - things like that.'

'Don't you like the curtains in here?' Hero never had liked them, even badly faded as they were now. 'I see what you mean,' he went on. 'It isn't the sort of thing I notice unless it's pointed out to me.'

'I'll bring back the other ikon,' Hero offered.

But he wouldn't have it. 'You keep it. It's yours anyway.'

'It isn't really. Everything here belongs to you now. That's what we agreed!'

He stared out of the window. The dead and dying grass went on and on into the distance as far as he could see, broken only by the occasional flat-topped acacia tree, the yellow bark and branches turning the same blackened grey that was creeping across the whole land.

'I want you to have it, Hero,' he said abruptly. 'Where is your room, by the way?'

She was hesitant about showing it to him, but she couldn't think of any good reason why she should cavil at his following her down the corridor to her own, much smaller room, with the same narrow bed she had when she was a child, and a much thumbed collection of books on the shelves that lined two of the four walls. He went over to the books at once, smiling at a battered copy of Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons and some of the Dr. Doolittle books stuck in at random between more serious works on Agricultural Economics and the Principles of Accountancy.

'I'd expected you to prefer girls' books,' he said.

Her breath stuck in the back of her throat. Somehow it was terribly important that he should approve all the books she had had as a child. 'I liked all sorts,' she told him, 'Little Women, and What Katy Did - even Little Lord Fauntleroy. I loved him dearly!'

'Lucky little Lord Fauntleroy!' His tone was again mocking.

She edged towards the door, more shy of him than she had ever been. 'I'll go and find Koinage. He'll want to know what we want for lunch. Shall I ask him to bring in your luggage?' She hesitated, waiting for his answer. 'Shall I unpack for you, or do you prefer to do it yourself?'

He turned on his heel. 'Would you really unpack for me?' he asked.

She threaded her fingers together, refusing to meet his inquiring glance. 'Of course,' she said.

'What a splendid woman your mother must have been!' he remarked.

'Well, so she was!' Hero agreed. And if he wanted to use her services now, he could jolly well ask, she thought to herself. She had plenty to do, unpacking for herself.

He came across the room to her, picking up a strand of her hair and pulling it gently between two fingers. 'I still think you should have your parents' room,' he said. 'If I slept in the dressing-room, it would be more convenient when Betsy and her friends come visiting—'

'How did you know there was a dressing-room?' she demanded.

He shrugged, smiling. 'One door for the bathroom, the other the dressing-room. It didn't take a great deal of deduction to work that out.' He pulled at her hair again. 'You can keep the door shut if you like. I can use the other one. Will that suit you?'

She nodded silently. 'But what will Betsy think?'

'Does it matter what she thinks?'

'No, I suppose not,' she admitted. 'Not if you don't mind.'

'Betsy and I understand one another pretty well,' he said dryly. 'You don't have to worry about her.'

She looked up at him then. 'Did you - did you know her before?' she inquired.

His hand fell away from her hair and he frowned. 'I met her last year. She was doing the Tsavo Game Reserve at the same time I was there.'

He did not continue, and Hero could not resist saying: 'She didn't tell me she'd known you before. I thought she barely knew you at all!'

'I thought you once told me you didn't go in for fishing?'

He pulled her into the curve of his arm and walked along with her back along the hall. 'I think I'd go a long way if those Greek eyes of yours were waiting for me at the other end. They're so dark and serious, even when you laugh! Don't throw them away on anyone who doesn't appreciate them.' He bent his head and kissed her lightly on the cheek. 'I like the Greek bits.'

Hero sat on the verandah, pretending to smock the top of a new nightdress she was making for herself, but actually she was waiting for Benedict. He had been gone for a long time and she was beginning to wonder if the Land-Rover he had taken had broken down, or whether he was lost, trying to discover the limits of the dried-out fields. The African servant came out of the door and stared into the distance too. He had already accepted Benedict as the new owner of the farm, which Hero, knowing his essentially conservative nature, had seen as a tribute to her husband's handling of him. 'Koinange, Bwana mahali gani?' The African shrugged his shoulders. 'Hajawa — ' he began. Memsahib Hero, ngoja. Bwana kuja sasa.' Hero looked where he was pointing and saw the plume of dust that heralded the coming of the Land- Rover. 'Leti chaiy Koinange,' she said in relief, and then wondered if tea was quite the beverage Benedict would require after swallowing all that dust. In her anxiety, she pricked her finger and, in her determination not to give way to the expletive that rose to her lips, some blood fell on the new nightdress. She shook it crossly, rescuing the scissors from the arm of her chair only just in time to save them from clattering to the floor. So she missed seeing Benedict get out of the Land-Rover and was surprised to find him

standing beside her.

'I've ordered some tea,' she told him.

'Good.' He flung himself into the chair beside hers, stretching out his legs in front of him.

Hero stood up as quickly as he had sat down. 'I'll go and get the tea myself,' she said. 'Koinange will dream until sunset if he's allowed to, and you look as if you could do with a cup of something. Papa always drank whisky, but I never got any more in after - I'll drive to Isiolo tomorrow and get you some. I should have thought when we were in Nairobi—'

'I'm quite happy with tea,' he interrupted her.

She made the tea as quickly as she could, using the local tea that had a pleasant, smoky taste that she herself liked very much. Then she went back to the verandah. Benedict was examining the nightie she was making, a slight smile on his face. She put down the tray and almost snatched it away from him.

'You sew a neat seam, Hero Carmichael,' he murmured. 'Did your mother teach you that too?'

She put the nightdress away. 'I went to a convent school. Sewing was a very important part of the syllabus as far as the nuns were concerned!'

He accepted his cup of tea from her hand with a comfortable sigh. 'I'm afraid you'll have to start taking in sewing after today.'

She cast him a swift look. 'Is it very bad?'

He nodded.

'The Kaufman specials? Will they have to go?'

He nodded again. 'It would be a shame to slaughter them, though. I'm going to try to send them to a friend of mine, to look after until the going gets better. It's sheer

cruelty to keep them on here.'

'I know,' she said. 'But I couldn't bring myself to get rid of them!' She poured out her own tea. 'I'm glad it's your responsibility now,' she confessed quickly. 'I'm afraid it's you who'll be the poorer though, they're all yours now!'

'Shall we say community property?' he suggested. 'Don't fret. It isn't all bad news.'