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'Shall I speak to Robin for you?'
'If you don't mind.'
He left the car and Melanie sat back, relieved that the doctor had
given her something for the pain. Vaguely she wondered what was
Luke's intention, but her mind felt too drugged to deal with such a
question. However, on his return he stated firmly that he was taking
her home.
'But what about Romaine and Fay?' she asked.
'Robin will bring them home when the dance finishes.'
Melanie said without thinking, 'Romaine wants to come home now.'
Luke had already started the car and he continued to nose it from
under the trees.
'She does? How do you know that?' Cool tones but edged with
curiosity.
'She told me, earlier on, that she wanted to be taken home.'
'Earlier? Then why didn't she mention this to me?'
'You weren't about.'
'So she told you after I had left the hall?' The car was almost at the
high gate and even as he spoke Luke was turning it into the road. The
lights were being left behind and after the town was skirted nothing
but the dark veld lay around them, with drifting glimpses of native
huts or trees or kopjes appearing, highlighted by the moon's silver
rays as they pierced the thin cloud layer.
It was some time before he received an answer to his question since it
was now occurring to Melanie that she was nearing the point where
she might have to give away the fact that the accident was caused by
her sister.
'Yes, it was after you had left the hall.'
'How long after?' Luke was acting rather strangely, she thought, since
it would appear that he was probing far too deeply into the matter.
'I didn't take much notice of the time.'
For a while there was silence between them, with Luke sitting in the
most casual pose, hands lightly resting on the steering wheel, eyes
ahead. The light of the headlamps threw into relief the bright white
bungalows which were now appearing, scattered prettily on the
hillside or along the roadside. Bushes and small copses came and
went, living for a bright illuminated moment before melting back into
the slumbering darkness of the landscape; moths by the hundred
fluttered before the headlight glare, like snowflakes wrapped in fine
gold leaf. And in the vast dark vault of the sky a myriad stars
twinkled, clear and blue as the purest diamonds.
Having reached a particularly lonely place in the road Luke turned
off; the car rocked drunkenly on a rutted and stony track and even as
Melanie opened her mouth to ask what this was all about the car
dragged to a stop and the brakes were applied.
'Don't speak,' was his first command as, reaching up, he snapped on
the interior light. 'I'm doing the talking, and as I'm in no mood for
subtleties I'll come straight to the point or perhaps I should say,
points, since there are several which I shall bring up. First, I want to
know exactly what happened when you fell off that wall?'
'Is it important, Luke?' This stopping of the car puzzled her, as did
Luke's manner, for although it was calm, unruffled, she had the
strange impression that there was an unfamiliar tenseness within him;
she also had the impression that it would not take very much
provocation to make him lose his temper. In fact, her question
brought an impatient intake of his breath and his voice was sharp and
short as he replied,
'I wouldn't otherwise have asked it, since I'm not in any mood to
waste words!''Do you mind telling me what this is all about?'
He turned in his seat, and looked narrowly at her. Emotions stirred
and she lowered her lashes, automatically fingering the hard white
ridge of plaster that covered her wrist and reached right down to the
knuckle bones. -
'A few moments before I came upon you out there in the Club gardens
Romaine ran past me; so great was her hurry that she didn't see me,
and she was muttering to herself something that sounded like "It
serves her right". She came from the direction of the wall.' A pause
ensued as he gave Melanie the opportunity of commenting, but a
silence pervaded the car as she sought vainly for words which would
shield her sister. 'I suggest that it was then that she told you she
wanted to go home?' Again no sound from Melanie and he continued,
'She had something to do with the fall.' It was a statement, but
Melanie automatically shook her head and said she would rather not
talk about it, whereupon he nodded perceptively and told her that her
reticence was adequately revealing.
'You and she had quarrelled, that was obvious from her mutterings. It
was also obvious that she was in a temper and I strongly suspect that
Romaine in a temper would stop at nothing. And although you won't
speak, I know that in some way she was responsible for your fall I
knew it almost at once, but naturally I was far more concerned with
the matter of getting you to hospital than in wasting precious time
analysing the situation.' He looked sideways at her, noting her pallor,
and a frown crossed his face. 'Either she hit out at you deliberately or
she gave you a push that caused you to lose your balance. Are you
going to tell me-What the quarrel was about?'
'It was more an argument than a quarrel,' she said, and he uttered an
exasperated sigh.
'Very well! Point two,' he said abruptly, his swift change of subject
giving her a jolt, 'might cause you a little embarrassment. But should
it also cause you to shrink away and tuck yourself into that armoured
shell which you manage always to keep handy, then despite the fact
that you've broken your wrist I shall give you something that'll make
you tingle for a week and sitting down more than a little difficult!'
Impatience mingled with the hint of anger in his voice, but
amusement was also there ... and the note that warned her he was
quite ready to carry out his threat. 'Point two, Melanie, is: what were
you doing allowing Robin to make love to you like that?' Just as he
expected she blushed hotly, but she was prudent enough not to 'shrink
away ... into that armoured shell '
'He wasn't making love to me I mean,' she amended on noting the
swift and sceptical raising of his eyebrows, 'it wasn't what it appeared
to be.'
'Really?' with a further lift of his brows. 'It looked perfectly plain to
me.'
'I don't understand what this is all about?' she said impatiently. 'I'm
very tired, Luke, and would like to go to bed.'
'Avoiding the issue again! Melanie, don't, I beg of you, goad me any
more! You know darned well what this is all about! Would I bring
you here, and sit and talk like this, if there wasn't something
important afoot? Open your eyes, girl, and see what you ought to
have seen long ago before that sister of yours came poking into our
affairs, convincing you that she could take me from you!' He was in a
temper now, but Melanie, having fully absorbed what he had been
saying, knew no fear of that temper; on the contrary, the very fact of
its existence brought an onrush of pleasurable sensations such as she
had known prior to the appearance on the scene of Romaine, when,
her friendship with Luke being strengthened every day, Melanie
allowed into her consciousness glimpses of a happy future with him,
here in this beautiful country.
'Luke,' she faltered at last as she heard his angry intake of breath as
his patience began to run out, 'are you t-telling me that we you and
I can--' She got no further because of the tightness in her throat and
the fact that no words of affection, even, had ever left his lips.
'Yes,' he snapped, 'that's exactly what I am telling you!'
'Oh...
'And perhaps you'll now tell me why you were allowing Robin to
make love to you!'
'He wasn't, Luke. We were saying goodbye.'
'You--!' He stared at her. 'What, then, were you doing with him this
evening?'
'His train doesn't leave Rayneburg until early tomorrow morning, so
he asked if he could take me to the dance.' She paused, searching his
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