THE EDGE OF BEYOND

Isobel Chace

"I'll treat you like a woman when you're prepared to behave like one!" were almost the first words Laurence Wilder addressed to Rosalind Janes.

How dared he! she thought furiously. All she was doing was to try and help her Aunt Beatrice cope single-handedly with the farm she had been left in Kenya. Well, if Laurence Wilder thought she would accept any help or advice from him now, he could think again!

CHAPTER ONE

'It won't be far now,' Rosalind said consolingly to her aunt. She tried to sound excited, whipping up her failing enthusiasm, but she knew that her aunt was not deceived. 'A bit of neglect can soon be put right,' she added.

'Can it?' Mrs. Hollings heaved a defeated sigh. 'I should never have come!'

'We haven't seen the house yet. I can't imagine Uncle Terence living in anything less than the best!'

'True, but then I haven't seen him in fourteen years, and I don't suppose you really remember him at all.'

Rosalind concentrated on the rutted road ahead. 'I remember him,' she said.

Her aunt summoned up a smile. 'Once seen, never forgotten?'

'No, it wasn't quite like that. But I remember your wedding very well. I was eleven years old, and one remembers quite a lot at that age.'

'Does one? I've forgotten.'

Rosalind glanced across at her aunt. 'I'm sorry, Beatrice. I thought you'd got over it ages ago.'

'I have really. It's just that it's odd to be seeing where he was living all this time. He only stayed with me for a few months and I always, imagined that the competition must have been pretty hot to have kept him away. Only I wouldn't describe this as hot competition, would you? My vanity is hurt!'

'Perhaps there was more to it,' Rosalind suggested, and then immediately wished she hadn't. Her aunt was only twelve years older than she was herself, and if anyone knew how lonely the last few years had been, Rosalind did. 'Look, there's the house now!' She pointed through some rather scrubby trees at a stone building in the distance. 'Do you see it?'

Beatrice Hollings stared at the house for a long moment in silence. 'What's that black stuff all over it?' she asked at last.

'Black stuff?' Rosalind swerved dangerously as her attention was momentarily diverted from the road. 'So it is! It looks as though it's been in a fire.'

'I'll believe it!' Beatrice sighed. 'I'll believe anything!'

'Well, I don't! Who'd want to burn down a perfectly good house?' Rosalind maintained stoutly. 'The soil round here looks black. Perhaps it's blown up against the house and stuck in the rough parts of the stone.'

'That house has been burned!' Beatrice Hollings declared. She was silent for another long moment. 'Ros, I should never have brought you out here. Perhaps we should turn round, here and now, and go back. What do you think?'

'Don't be such a ninny!' Rosalind retorted. 'We're here, and here we're staying! We'll make a go of it, don't you worry!

'But I do worry! I should never have talked you into it, only I did so want to see where Terence had lived all this time. And now the whole place reproaches me for my curiosity. I should have let him go when he left me, instead of clinging to silly dreams! I'm old enough to know better!'

'You're tired,' Rosalind excused her.

'We're both tired. Sotik looked quite near to Nairobi on the map—^:'

Rosalind grinned. 'Poor Auntie!' she mocked.

'I'll kill you, Rosalind Janes, if you Auntie me!' Beatrice warned her. 'You can show your respect by parking the car under that gorgeous tree - which seems to be the only worthwhile thing around - and taking a look at the house, while I sit here and have a nice cry!'

Rosalind forced her stiff limbs out of the car and looked about her. Her aunt had been right, she reflected, the tree was the only worthwhile thing in the garden. What had once been a lawn was little more than a hay-field and it was difficult to see where the flower beds began or ended. But the tree, she thought, was a symbol of what it could be like. She studied it with interest, wondering if it was a jacaranda or a judas tree. How terribly ignorant one could be, she laughed at herself. It must be a jacaranda, surely, for only that had those lovely mauve flowers that fell in a carpet at the foot of the tree in such exotic largesse.

Her aunt had not moved when Rosalind reluctantly turned towards the house. Perhaps they shouldn't have come, Rosalind worried to herself. It was difficult to believe that Beatrice had ever felt anything for Terence Hollings, but perhaps, after all, she had. Women did sometimes fall for charming scroungers, and Uncle Terence had never pretended to be anything more than that, but Beatrice had always been so sensible and unruffled that it was hard to imagine her plunging headlong into an impossible romance. Her aunt had never talked about her husband to Rosalind, and Rosalind had never asked her about it. Everyone was entitled to their privacy, those small private areas where one hesitated to allow even one's nearest and dearest to trespass. Rosalind had one or two such places herself, and one of the nicest things she knew about Beatrice was that her aunt had never tried to force her confidence, not even when she had been much younger and much more vulnerable than she was now.

There was no doubt, now she was close up to it, that the house had been in a fire. The windows were blistered with the heat and were badly fitting. The front door no longer closed properly and what had once been the verandah was now reduced to a few charred planks.

'But why?' Rosalind cried out to the empty air.

'Why indeed?' a strong, masculine voice answered behind her. Rosalind swung round to face him.

'Who are you?' she demanded.

The man didn't answer. He stood, completely at his ease, and looked her up and down. It was just as though he were summing her up and dismissing her as though she were of no account. Rosalind coloured. She was not looking at her best, she knew, but did he have to make it so devastatingly clear that he thought so, too? Rosalind, with her fair, almost white hair, deep brown eyes and a skin that tanned easily, knew that she would never be beautiful, but her looks were sufficiently unusual for her always to have stood out in any crowd.

'I was expecting Mrs. Hollings,' the man said.

'I'm her niece,' Rosalind told him. She tried to meet his eyes with a disinterest that equalled his, but she found she couldn't. The cool grey of his reduced her confidence to a quivering air of expectancy that she could only despise in herself.

'It's Mrs. Hollings I wish to see. Where is she?'

'In the car,' Rosalind told him reluctantly. She hoped her aunt had not carried out her threat of having a nice cry, because this man would never understand such a feminine reaction and would probably leap to the conclusion that they were both weak and easily pushed around.

'Isn't she coming in?' he demanded. 'Or do I have to interview her in the garden?'

'Won't I do?' Rosalind suggested. 'My aunt is tired after the long drive here and I—'

'Is your aunt in her dotage?'

He sounded so superior that Rosalind's eyes widened with simulated astonishment. 'No, she isn't. She's quite young and very pretty. She was very much younger than my mother—'

The man twitched his feet impatiently. 'Spare me the whole family history!' he interrupted. 'And no, you won't do. What I have to say is better said to Mrs. Hollings in person. She is now the owner of the property, I suppose?'

'Yes, she is.' Rosalind faced him with a set expression. 'All the same, I don't think this is the best time for you to say anything to her. Can't you wait until we can get ourselves more or less settled in?'

'I'm hoping to save you the trouble. This is no place for a couple of females to live on their own. I should have thought one look was sufficient to convince you of that!'

Rosalind was prepared to concede that he was right about that, but his whole attitude put her teeth on edge. She glared at him, wishing he looked less at home standing there on the remains of the verandah, while she felt a stranger, and rather a grubby one at that. The dust had streaked the fairness of her hair and any make-up that she had put on that morning had long since worn off.

'Oh, very well,' she decided suddenly. 'I'll go and fetch my aunt.'

To her surprise he very nearly smiled. 'Good girl!' he commended her. 'I'll find her something to sit on inside the house.' His face expressed the distaste he was obviously feeling, making her crosser than ever. 'It's a bit of a pig-sty inside.'

'Inside?' Rosalind exclaimed. 'It can't be worse than the outside! What happened here? It looks as though there's been a fire.' She glanced at him suspiciously. 'Was there a fire? Are you trying to keep us away from here for some reason?'

'Only for your own good!' he retorted. 'And yes, there was a fire, years ago. The people who lived here wanted to leave Kenya when the country became independent. Unfortunately for them a great many others did too, and the compensation offered for their land was barely enough to cover their fares home. They lost their temper and set fire to the place sooner than see it go to anyone else. That's why Hollings got the farm so cheaply.'

'Did he?' Rosalind said before she could stop herself. It was typical of Terence Hollings, she supposed, but she knew that Beatrice had always believed that he had paid dearly for his land. 'Did you know Hollings?' she added carefully.

He looked at her, his impatience showing in his face. 'I thought you were going to get your aunt!' he reminded her.

Rosalind turned on her heel and walked back to the car and her waiting aunt.

'What's it like?' Beatrice greeted her in tones that declared that she certainly wasn't expecting too much.

'Terrible!' Rosalind told her, only just managing to smile as she said it. 'Worse still, there's a man on the remains of the verandah who wants to speak to you. I asked him what he wanted, but he insists on speaking to you as the owner of this desirable property!'

Beatrice got out of the car, her face heavy with a grief that Rosalind could only guess at. 'I hope Terry didn't leave the place to him in some later will,' she muttered.

'Not even Uncle Terence would do that!'

Beatrice made an expressive face and stretched. 'Come on, love, let's face the music, whatever it is, together!'

Rosalind sensed the strange man's surprise when he saw her aunt. That had shown him, she thought with a touch of triumph. She was proud of Beatrice. How many women could have sauntered over those charred boards, looking as though she had lived there all her life and knew exactly how to deal with tiresome visitors who couldn't take no for an answer. Beatrice, in her late thirties, could hold her own with anyone!

'I am Beatrice Hollings,' she was saying now. 'I understand you want to speak to me?'

The stranger smiled grimly. 'I had expected you to be older,' he was surprised into saying.

Beatrice froze. 'My husband was a great deal older than I, but he was my husband,' she said dryly.

The stranger's smile grew warmer. 'I can't believe you had much in common,' he answered. 'Not that I knew Hollings well. Our dealings were confined to the way he farmed his land. The house is bad enough, but I suppose something could be made of it, but the land has been terribly neglected. That's why I'm here. Mrs. Hollings. I've come to make you an offer for your property, lock, stock and barrel, to take it off your hands. This is no place for you, either of you. You'd do well to take my offer and go back to England!'

Beatrice gave him a long, level look. 'But we've only just got here!' she replied coolly. 'I'll see what I think later on.'

The stranger kicked at a loose board with the toe of his boot. 'Look around, Mrs. Hollings,' he advised. 'Isn't that enough for you?'

Rosalind's warm affection for her aunt had dated back to her childhood. When her mother's younger sister had married, Rosalind had taken a lively interest in the event. She had disliked Terence Hollings with the whole-heartedness of childhood and had said so loud and long, no matter how much her mother had hushed her or her father had threatened retribution if she didn't shut up.

But almost immediately Terence Hollings had disappeared from all their lives. Rosalind could just remember her parents talking about the scandal he had caused by leaving his bride of a few months, but what had really happened, Rosalind had never known. When she had grown older, Beatrice had told her that Terence's family had disapproved of the marriage and that they had offered him a substantial allowance providing he went to Kenya and lived out there. Rosalind had guessed it had been a move by his family to remove him from their proximity at any cost, but Beatrice had never admitted that this had been the reason. Terence, she said, had a weak chest and the high altitude of Sotik suited him. She never offered any explanation at all as to why she had not gone with him.

Rosalind had been fifteen when her parents had been killed in a car crash. She had turned naturally to her aunt and she had never been disappointed. Beatrice Hollings had opened her home and her heart to her niece and they had lived happily together until Rosalind had gone to an agricultural college and had then gone on to work on a farm, on the other side of Canterbury to her aunt.

She had been out with the last of the hop-pickers, now a rare sight in the Kent countryside, when her employer had called her into the farm office.

'Telephone call for you, Ros. It's your aunt!'

Rosalind had run the whole way to the office. 'It isn't anything wrong, is it?' she had asked breathlessly.

'She sounded cheerful enough,' her employer had said.

And she had sounded cheerful, though Rosalind had thought she could detect a certain reservation in her aunt's tones that was not usually there.

'What's wrong, Bea?' she had asked.

'It's Terry. I've had a letter from his solicitors in Kenya. They say he's dead.'

Rosalind's heart had plummeted within her. 'Are you sure?' she had asked foolishly.

Beatrice had rightly ignored the question. 'He's left the farm to me. Ros, can you come over? We'll have to discuss this between us and decide what we want to do.'

There had been no doubt in Rosalind's mind as to what they should do. She was only surprised that her aunt should hesitate. The sooner the property was sold the better. Her aunt could do with the money. She had scrimped and saved in that little cottage of hers for far too long as it was.

'Ros? Can you come?'

'Of course I'm coming! I'll be with you in about an hour. Okay?'

There had been a sound that had sounded suspiciously like a sob at the other end of the line and then her aunt had rung off, without bothering to say good-bye, but then she never did. Beatrice's approach to the telephone was all her own.

It was sufficiently unusual for Rosalind to ask for time off for her employer not to cavil at her sudden request to leave everything to go and visit her aunt.

'Something happen to her?' she was asked.

'I don't know,' she admitted. 'Her husband has died, out in Kenya, and I think she's more upset about it than she's letting on.'

'When did she last see him?'

Rosalind shrugged thin shoulders. 'About ten years ago, I suppose.'

Her employer looked amused. 'Perhaps she's afraid of freedom after all this time?'

But it was not a subject that Rosalind could joke about. She rammed her hat on the back of her head and fled, not bothering to change, or even to do her hair, before rushing out to her car and setting off for her aunt's small cottage in the pretty valley just behind Dover.

The road works delayed her, as they had ever since she had first driven along the A2 between Canterbury and Dover while the various road widening schemes had slowly improved the main highway from London to the Channel ports. For once she felt impatient of the temporary traffic lights and the great, cumbersome machinery that lumbered up and down the dazzling white chalk foundations that other enormous machines had laid bare.

At Temple Ewell she turned right, slowing down as she passed the pretty mill and the little cluster of houses that edged the short road to Kearsney. It was here, in the Alkham valley, that her aunt lived. Beatrice maintained that it was the prettiest valley in the whole of England, and Rosalind would have been hard put to it to have thought of a more lovely one. In the autumn, when the trees were turning to rust, the green sloping fields hardly looked real at all. They were more like an expensive child's toy with the sleek cattle and the crossbred sheep carefully arranged to look their best. At more leisurely moments, Rosalind would stop the car and cast a professional eye over the animals, taking pleasure in the quality of the stock, even if it were not her own. But now she had no time to look at anything, but turned quickly into her aunt's tiny, neat drive and went on up the few steps to the house.

Beatrice had heard her car on the loose pebbles of the drive and flung open the door. The traces of tears showed on her face, but she smiled warmly at her niece, leading her into the hall. Rosalind had always loved her aunt's home. It was an old house, built of Kentish ragstone, with high, gabled windows and a roof of peg-tiles, so old they were rose-coloured and a little uneven. Her aunt had bought the house soon after Terence Hollings had gone to Kenya and had turned the garden into a smallholding which barely supported her. In the evenings she knitted for an order firm, which she had trained herself to do at the same time as she watched television. In all the years that Rosalind had known her, she had seldom seen her aunt idle and never without a variety of plans for making the pittance she earned go further.

'Well, Bea? What's the matter? Surely you don't still care for him after all this time?'

Beatrice bit her lip. 'I'm not completely heartless!'

Rosalind smiled at her. 'No, you're very pretty and in your prime! I don't think I'm heartless either, but you are only thirty-eight, love! What chance have you ever had of living - really living? First Terence, and then me. What are you going to do now?'

Beatrice actually trembled, looking quite unlike herself. 'That's what I wanted to talk to you about. I've practically made up my mind to take a terrific gamble and - But I couldn't do it alone! Nor do I want to interfere with the life you're making for yourself.'

Rosalind sat down on a chintz-covered chair. 'Tell me?' she invited.

Her aunt smiled nervously. 'You'll think I'm being silly-'

'Probably!' Rosalind agreed.

A flash of temper showed in Beatrice's eyes. 'I'll tell you after tea, which you can make, while I go and fetch this solicitor's letter.'

Rosalind stretched her legs out in front of her, showing no sign of moving. 'I must wash,' she said. 'I smell of hops.' She sniffed at her fingers. 'It's rather a nice smell. Oh, by the way, I've saved you some for decoration purposes, but I forgot to bring them. Will the week-end do?'

'Any time,' her aunt answered vaguely. She paused by her niece's chair. 'You look tired, Ros. I'm sorry now that I asked you to come!'

Rosalind leaped to her feet. 'Never say that, darling! I'd come if I had to crawl all the way! Surely you know that?'

Her aunt looked at her curiously. 'Gratitude?' she challenged.

Rosalind nodded. 'More than that.' She flashed a gay, slanted smile, her eyes full of laughter. 'I think I must like you!'

'My dear,' her aunt teased her, 'I think I shall need that tea to recover from the shock! Do you want something to eat?'

Rosalind shook her head. She went into the kitchen and plugged in the electric kettle, setting out the tea-pot and two cups on a tray. As she was waiting for the water to boil, she wondered if her aunt was ever lonely, living alone. If she could have found work, even a little nearer, she could have lived at home, but it was not every farm that was big enough to want to employ a woman. She had been lucky to find her present job where she was expected to do a little bit of everything and where her sex was never mentioned except after working hours.

She made the tea and carried the tray into the sitting-room where Beatrice had already seated herself, her spectacles perched on the end of her nose as she re-read the letter in her hand. Rosalind poured out the tea and then sat down herself, suddenly realizing how tired she was.

'Now,' she said, smothering a yawn, 'tell me all about it!'

Beatrice fluttered the letter helplessly in front of her. 'Terry left me his farm,' she burst out. 'You know, the place where he's been living all these years. Well, it was all he had to leave anyone because, of course, the allowance his family made him died with him. I wish - I wish I'd known before! He was very fond of Sotik. If I'd known, I might have gone out and seen if we could make a go of things after all.'

'Did he ever invite you to?' Rosalind asked.

A shadow fell over Beatrice's face. 'No, but then I didn't offer either. I took it for granted that it was all over when - when he left.'

Rosalind studied the tea in her cup thoughtfully. 'Why didn't you ever get a divorce, Bea?'

'Because I don't believe in it.'

'Just like that?'

Beatrice nodded. 'Just like that.'

'I imagine the farm is quite valuable? The money should bring you in quite a nice income if it's properly invested. I'm glad of that!'

Beatrice sat up very straight. 'I'm not going to sell it.'

Rosalind stared at her. 'But what else can you do?' she demanded.

'I'm going to sell this house and go out to Kenya. If Terence could make the place pay, so can you! We are going to Kenya! If anyone knows what they're doing on a farm, it ought to be you, darling.'

'An English farm,' Rosalind temporized, touched by Beatrice's faith in her, the more especially as she knew how very limited her experience of farming still was. 'I don't know the first thing about farming in Africa!'

Beatrice laughed easily. 'It can't be very different. You still milk the cows and clip the sheep for their wool! I wonder what sort of a farm it is ?'

'Don't you know—' Rosalind gasped.

Beatrice managed to look apologetic. 'Well, no,' she admitted. 'But think what a splendid opportunity it will be for you! I'm going to sell this house to raise enough money for our fares and I thought you might use a bit of the money your parents left you - I wouldn't ask you, dear, only I don't think I can swing it all myself, and this is the kind of thing they meant you to have it for, isn't it?'

'It's all yours!' Rosalind responded immediately. 'It should have been spent on my training—'

'Well, we can call this a post-graduate course, if it makes you feel any better!' her aunt retorted, chuckling.

'Oh, it does!' Rosalind wailed. 'It's totally mad!'

'But you'll come?' Beatrice pleaded.

'I'm not letting you go on your own,' Rosalind answered. 'It seems to amount to the same thing!'

Beatrice grinned. 'It does, doesn't it?' she rejoiced. 'Have you finished your tea? I thought we might go for a stroll round the gardens of the Abbey before it gets dark. There's a duck there with an injured foot and I like to take it a slice of bread every evening.'

Rosalind shook her head at her, pretending a disapproval she was far from feeling. 'Perhaps you'd better let me see the letter. Does it say anything about the farm? Surely Uncle Terence must have told you something about it?'

'Nothing. I don't think he thought I was interested, and even if I had been, he wouldn't have thought it any of my business—'

Rosalind's chin jutted forward. 'I can't think why you married him!'

Beatrice disappeared into the kitchen in search of some bread. 'No? It was a long time ago,' she said vaguely. 'I was silly and easily flattered. Every time he kissed me I was sure he loved me, and only me, though he told me that he didn't, that he didn't love anyone, naturally I didn't want to believe him. I think he went through the ceremony because he couldn't bear to disappoint anyone as vulnerable as I was. So you see, my love, I was far more to blame than he was!'

'You're impossible!' Rosalind exclaimed.

Beatrice laughed. She tied a scarf over her hair and looked about her, as if assessing her home in her mind's eye. 'You know, I can't wait to leave here now I've made up my mind! Funny really, because I've liked living here. I feel like a snake must do when the time has come to slough off its old skin and start again, new and shining bright!'

Rosalind looked anxiously at her aunt. 'You do know that we can come an awful cropper? I'll do all I can to find out about farming in Kenya, but that won't be very much. The best we can hope for is some kind neighbours!'

'Mmm,' Beatrice agreed. 'You can charm the young ones and I'll do my best with the middle-aged! Cheer up, Ros! I thought the young were always eager for adventure and the great unknown!'

'Not me!' Rosalind sighed.

'But you do want to come?' her aunt coaxed her.

'If you want to go. If you've thought about it, and I don't think you've thought at all! And if you still want to go by the time we've put the house up for sale and I've given in my notice at the farm. I think you ought to write to the solicitor and find out more about what we're taking on. We don't even know if the house is liveable in!'

'If Terry lived there, we can,' Beatrice said as if she were establishing an impregnable fact. 'I think you'd better bring your coat. There's quite a fresh wind blowing outside.'

Rosalind strolled down the road at her aunt's side, thinking that there was nothing finer than an English autumn evening. The gold of the sun was reflected in the leaves of the trees that shimmered in reflection in the man-made lake that was a feature of the Abbey gardens. The enormous cedar of Lebanon that dominated the freshly mown grass contrasted with the softer greens of the other trees, now turning to various shades of copper.

'Can you bear to leave this?' she asked her aunt softly.

Beatrice clucked for the invalid duck she had taken under her wing. 'Easily! I love it of course, but it will still be here when I'm old and when I've seen a bit more of the world. For every day like today, there are a hundred when it's grey with mist and they don't think it's worth opening up the shop for tea!'

'I wonder what Kenya is like,' Rosalind went on, busy with her own thoughts.

Beatrice chided a too greedy drake, pushing his beak away with a forceful finger. 'Terence said it was heavenly.' She frowned, trying to find something that would satisfy her niece. 'I think they grow tea at Sotik,' she remembered. 'Very good tea, if I remember rightly.'

'Tea!'

Beatrice laughed out loud at Rosalind's outraged expression. 'Darling, I don't think Terry ever grew tea!'

'I hope not!' said Rosalind. But the thought of facing the unknown alone with her aunt gave her a lowering feeling that would not be dismissed. It stayed with her all through the weeks while Beatrice sold her house for a ridiculously high price and she worked out her notice at the farm where she worked. It was still with her when they arrived in Nairobi and took delivery of the car they had ordered for their use at Sotik. When she saw the house and farm, she knew quite definitely how much better they would have done to sell and to have stayed safely in England amongst the people and things they knew. The tried and trusted things they had always loved. For there was no welcoming look in the stranger's grey eyes, only an impatience and an evident desire for them to be gone.

CHAPTER TWO

'Look around, Mrs. Hollings! Isn't that enough for you?'

Beatrice obediently looked about her, exchanging a look of mild despair with Rosalind. 'I don't think you understand, Mr.—?' She paused inquiringly, but the stranger made no move to supply the missing name. 'We haven't come all this way merely to turn round and go back again.'

'You'd be well advised to do exactly that!' the stranger said sharply.

'I'm not going to!'

Rosalind watched the angry colour creep up her aunt's face and took a quick step forward. 'Neither of us are going to!' she declared.

The stranger's cool grey eyes met hers. 'Perhaps you will allow your aunt to make her own decisions! It is her money and effort which is at stake, not yours!'

To Rosalind's astonishment, Beatrice merely looked amused. 'You're quite wrong,' she said mildly. 'Rosalind is the farmer, not me.'

The stranger looked like thunder. 'I don't believe it!'

'You'll have to,' Beatrice responded. 'It happens to be true!'

'That's all I needed! Good God, woman, don't you know there's more to farming than looking pretty and knowing a bull from a cow?'

Rosalind glared at him with smouldering eyes. 'I don't see that looking pretty has anything to do with it!' she retorted. Her normally soft mouth took on mutinous lines. 'And I do know what I'm talking about!'

'Meaning that I don't? Don't be ridiculous! Now listen, both of you, if that isn't asking too much? The day of the amateur farmer in this country is past. I did my best to explain the facts of life to Terence Hollings, without any result, and I do not intend to start all over again with you. This farm is a disgrace to the whole district! I run the co-operative that marches with your boundaries and I've had enough of your weeds blowing on to my land, of your fences falling down, and your poor stock running with my bloodstock. I may as well tell you now that had Hollings lived, I'd have done my best to have had him dispossessed and the land divided up between my farmers. Courtesy made me wait for your arrival, but my intention remains the same. If I thought you could pull the place together, I might have changed my mind and allowed you a little time, but having seen you—'

'Do you always judge people on such flimsy evidence?' Rosalind broke in. 'Well, let me tell you that your troubles are over! Terence Hollings may not have known anything about farming, but we do! You wait! In a few months this will be the best run farm for miles around!'

The stranger gave her a long, incredulous look. 'You are going to achieve this?'

'Why not?' Rosalind challenged him.

He spread his hands in a helpless gesture. Cross with him as she was, Rosalind couldn't help noticing how well kept his hands were. They were strong hands, tanned by the sun, with beautifully clean nails.

'My dear girl, you haven't the remotest idea what you're talking about!'

'I do!' Rosalind longed to tell him that she had various certificates to prove it, but common sense told her that he would discount them as being quite useless in her present circumstances.

He turned away from, dismissing her completely from any further share in their conversation, if conversation it could be called.

'Mrs. Hollings, I am doing you a kindness by making you this offer. I shall hold it open for exactly one month, but if by then there is, as I suspect there will be, no improvement in your land, I shall do my level best to get you dispossessed and the land taken over by the Co-operative. Is that clear?'

'Quite clear,' Beatrice said almost casually.

'Mrs. Hollings, I do mean what I say.'

'I'm sure you do,' Beatrice replied, smiling. 'But I have the advantage of knowing my niece. You do not!'

His exasperation was plain to see. 'Mrs. Hollings!' he roared.

'I do know my name,' Beatrice murmured. 'There's no need to repeat it every time.'

Rosalind thought her aunt unwise to antagonize him. She would not have admitted it, not even to herself, but she found him rather frightening and thought it more than possible that he would carry out his threats. It was her own fault, she thought. She should have made it plainer to Beatrice that she had no idea of how to farm in Africa and at such an altitude. She didn't know where to begin to set the place in order!

'We can't do much in one month!' she exclaimed.

'I'm not expecting you to do much,' he answered. 'If the general trend is upwards, I shall be prepared to discuss it with you again. I'm not unreasonable—'

'Discuss?' Rosalind said dryly.

His lips twitched. 'This farm has been a thorn in my flesh for longer than I like,' he admitted. 'Most of the land around here was farmed by Europeans before Independence, with the Kipsigis on one side and the Nandi on the other - they're two branches of what was originally one tribe in the distant past. A lot of the settlers left when the old order changed. The government stepped in with this plan for a Co-operative and I agreed to run it for them. We've done wonders, considering all the difficulties we've had to face. But this farm has been so badly neglected that it's upset a number of our small farmers. They run their places on a shoestring and when your diseased stock gets in with theirs, it could be disastrous enough to bankrupt them!'

Rosalind blenched. 'But we have a month to show that things will be different now we are here?' she pressed him.

'One month!' he repeated.

Rosalind took a deep breath. She had seen enough to know that she was taking on an impossible task. 'I think that's very fair,' she forced herself to say.

Beatrice gave her a sidelong glance. 'One month doesn't seem very long to me,' she protested. 'Whatever he says, Ros, the land is still mine!'

Rosalind saw the stranger shift his weight from one foot to the other, his expression as bleak as a winter's day.

'In a month I'll know what we can do,' she answered her aunt.

'And I'll know too!' the stranger reminded them both.

Rosalind nodded. 'You've made your point,' she said. 'Is there any need to go on being unpleasant?'

The bleakness suddenly vanished from his face and a look almost of resignation took its place. 'Was I being unpleasant?' He looked hard at her. 'I'd forgotten that you must be tired. It's a long drive for a couple of women to make on their own. I'll leave you to rest, though I'm afraid you've got a lot of work in front of you before you can get to bed.' He held out his hand first to Beatrice and then to Rosalind. 'Welcome to Sotik!' he said, tongue in cheek. 'I'll be off and let you get on with it!'

'I'll see you off,' Rosalind offered.

His grin was mocking. 'There isn't much for me to steal around here,' he murmured. 'I'll see myself off. You look as though you've had about enough of today.'

She held her head high. 'I suppose you mean I look the worse for wear!' she challenged him.

'Something like that,' he drawled. Then he laughed. 'What did you suppose I'd say? That you couldn't look lovelier if you tried?'

'Not at all!' she said coolly. 'I know better than to expect even common politeness from tough Colonials.'

He shook his head at her. 'I'm naturally cautious of young women who trade on their looks where men are concerned. If you want to be taken seriously as a farmer, don't expect me to make things cushy for you just because you belong to the female sex. You can't have it both ways. I'll treat you like a woman when you're prepared to behave like one!'

Rosalind gasped with indignation. 'Your idea of a woman!' she exploded.

'Of course!' he agreed smoothly. 'I imagine yours wouldn't do me at all!'

Rosalind blinked. 'At least we can agree about that. I happen to think women are people!'

'You don't say?' he drawled. He turned on his heel and began to walk down the drive to where he had left his car, a shooting brake of vast proportions. 'Good night, Mrs. Hollings!' he called out.

'Good night,' Beatrice answered.

Rosalind seethed with indignation. 'One month!' she said in such threatening tones that her aunt took an involuntary step backwards. 'I'll show him! We won't sell so much as a calf to him! I'll have this place running like clockwork! I'll-'

Beatrice gave her a sympathetic look. 'I think that may have been what he wanted to achieve,' she suggested. 'Whatever made you make him think that you'd break your back trying to do the impossible?'

'Because I don't trade on my sex!' Rosalind said fiercely.

Beatrice raised her eyebrows. 'I think he's trading on his, but I could be wrong. He'll have you running round in circles if you don't look out, my dear.'

Rosalind's eyes widened as she stared at her aunt. 'Beatrice!' she exclaimed. 'I thought he was perfectly horrid!'

'So I gathered,' Beatrice answered calmly. 'One thing though, he's quite right when he says we've got a day's work ahead of us before we can go to bed. Did you ever see such a mess? Which will you do, cook us something to eat or make up the beds?'

They were both exhausted by the time they crept between the creased and not very clean sheets which were all they could find. It was cold too, Rosalind thought. She had expected it to be quite hot, but she supposed it was the altitude that had brought a frosty touch to the night air. If that man hadn't been so beastly, there were a hundred and one questions that she might have asked him. She hoped that they wouldn't have to see much of him. He was one person she could very well do without. She pulled the bedclothes tighter around her and fell into a troubled slumber where the intolerable stranger trampled through and over her dreams.

Beatrice was up and had already made a start at cleaning the house when Rosalind roused herself and flung on some clothes, adding a sweater when she felt the full force of the cool morning air.

'I've been thinking,' her aunt addressed her as she tripped lightly down the stairs.

'Oh?' Rosalind encouraged her.

'I think we should sell out to that man. We can keep the house and—'

'And how would we live?' Rosalind countered.

'As I've always lived!' Beatrice answered.

'But, Bea dear, this isn't the Alkham valley. There's no Women's Institute market for you to sell your produce here, and somehow I can't think that the demand for specially knitted twin-sets is colossal either!'

'Besides, you don't knit,' her aunt added.

'Let's say I don't knit as well as you do,' Rosalind admitted. 'The fact is we can't afford to sell out, which is just as well, because I wouldn't sell a cabbage to that man!'

'So you say,' Beatrice smiled. 'Well, it's up to you, darling. If you think you can cope, I'll help in any way I can. I'm not going to pretend, though, that I can see myself re-fencing the paddocks, or fields, or whatever they're called.' Her eyes lit up suddenly. 'Perhaps we have some labour? How do we find out?'

Rosalind laughed. 'I don't know,' she admitted. 'I can't find any farm records anywhere in the house, but I may not have been looking for them in the right place. I think I'll spend the day having a look round to see what needs to be done and then we can decide how we're going to do it.'

'And what am I supposed to do?' Beatrice demanded.

Rosalind wrinkled her nose and looked about her significantly. 'One of us will have to do something about the house, Auntie dear!'

Her aunt gave her a cross look. 'You know, I'm beginning to have more sympathy with that impossible man every minute!' she snapped. 'How can you leave me to cope with this ruin on my own?'

Rosalind laughed. 'Easily!'

The house, she had already discovered, was basically solid. The damage from the fire was mostly on the surface, destroying much of the paintwork, curtains and furniture, but mercifully had spared, the hard wooden floors, and the beams that held up the roof and provided the supports for the single flight of stairs. What was needed was several gallons of paint and new material for curtains and to cover the ancient but comfortable furniture.

All that was wrong with the kitchen was a total lack of imagination. A stone slab had been lifted on to some old tea chests in place of a table, and the cooking arrangements were primitive in the extreme. A small supply of charcoal had been left in a sack in a corner, but Rosalind had never had to light an iron monster like the cooker before. The damp from the dew had found its way into the chimney, turning the flames from her lighted newspaper into smouldering smoke. If she hadn't wanted a cup of coffee very badly, she would have given in and gone back to her aunt. As it was, she was busy swearing at the pile of wooden chips that glowed weakly at the back of what she had hoped would be a roaring fire, when she became aware of somebody watching her. She turned quickly, just in time to see a black face dodging back behind the door.

'Come here at once!' she commanded, exasperated.

The black man shook his head, but he came slowly into the kitchen, staring at her as though she were a ghost.

'Nimekuja kumtazama bibi,' he muttered unintelligibly.

It was Rosalind's turn to stare. She should have known, she thought, that nobody would speak English! It was the last straw! She pointed to the cooker.

'Can you get this thing going? Can you make coffee?'

'Yes, memsahib.'

Rosalind smiled slowly. 'You can? Did you work for my uncle?'

He shook his head, his mouth twitching into a forbidding line. 'No, memsahib. The bwana sent me to help the two bibis.' Somehow, he made it plain that he expected to have the kitchen to himself. 'I bring the kahawa in to the other room.'

Rosalind made her escape with relief. 'There's someone in the kitchen making coffee for us,' she told her aunt, trying to make it sound like a normal, everyday event. 'Someone sent him to us,' she added.

'This I must see for myself!' Beatrice exclaimed. She went out into the kitchen and came back a few minutes later wreathed in smiles. 'He says he's the cook,' she triumphed.

'Do you think that man could have sent him?' Rosalind demanded.

Beatrice shrugged. 'I don't care if he did!'

'But I do! I will not be beholden to that man for anything!'

'Nobody's asking you to,' her aunt snubbed her. 'If anyone is beholden to him, I am, and I'm quite prepared to be properly grateful. You get on with your farming, Ros, and leave the house to me!'

But Rosalind was not prepared to leave it at that. The thought of having to accept any favours from the impossible stranger nagged at her like an aching tooth. She drank the delicious coffee the African had made without any appreciation and hurried out of the house as quickly as she could. She had known the instant she had set eyes on him that she had disliked him, that it was necessary to be on her guard with him, and now here he was putting a spy in their house who would doubtless retail to him every little thing she and Beatrice did! He was probably looking forward to turning them out. Well, he wouldn't have the opportunity! Not while she had a breath in her body with which to defy him!

Walking round the buildings of the farm, some of her usual common sense returned to her. The sheds were dank with neglect. The thatched roofs had long ago fallen into disrepair, and there were large holes in the walls where rodents, and possibly worse, for Rosalind had no idea as to what she could expect from the local wild animals, could go in and out at will. They would have to come down and be rebuilt, she told herself, and wondered what it would cost to build with asbestos on solid foundations, even supposing she could find anyone to do it for her.

The further buildings were, oddly enough, in better repair. Rosalind walked over to them curiously and was surprised to find them occupied. These were the stables, she discovered, patched and painted with creosote to stop the wooden walls from rotting away. She heard a whinny from somewhere within and opened the door, sticking her head over the bottom of the stable door. There were a whole string of horses inside, stocky and nervous; all of them eyeing her as curiously as she was them.

She allowed her eye to travel down the line and saw, last of all, a small mare with a perfect Arab head and a glossy coat that told its own story of loving grooming from some unknown person.

Rosalind slipped into her stall, patting the shy, twitching nose. 'You're beautiful!' she told the mare. 'The most beautiful thing on the place! At least someone has been looking after you!'

The mare pricked up her ears and whinnied gently into Rosalind's outstretched hand. 'I wonder if you belong to us,' Rosalind murmured. 'Do you? She ran her hands along the mare's smooth back, examining her swiftly for any flaws that would prevent her being ridden. 'Would you like an outing?' she asked with mounting excitement. 'You beautiful thing!'

She found a bridle and eased it on gently over the mare's head. There was no sign of any saddle, so she slung a blanket on to her back and rode without. The mare trotted out of the stables, waiting with twitching muscles while Rosalind bent and fastened the door.

'Well, which way do we go?' Rosalind asked her. 'You may lead the way as this is my first morning here!'

The little mare needed no second invitation. She cantered off smartly along what had once been a path that led between two fields, though it was difficult now to see where one began and the other ended. Rosalind looked about her with appreciation, despite the general decay of the land. It was beautiful country, with great, long views in every direction. She knew immediately she came to the boundary of the Hollings land. The stranger, she admitted to herself, had had quite a lot of justification for his anger. It distressed her too to see the general air of neglect that contrasted with the plump stock and neat fields of her neighbours. She lowered herself off the mare's back and kicked one of the posts that was supposed to hold the barbed wire. It fell over at a drunken angle, eaten away below ground level and rotten at the top.

Rosalind had some difficulty getting back on to the mare. The animal danced round her, prancing back and forth, sniffing the air as though she was longing to be gone. When Rosalind had finally mounted and managed to smooth the blanket beneath her that had become rucked up with her efforts, the mare would wait no longer, lengthening her stride into a flat gallop along the line of the border until they came level with a small brick bungalow. The mare snorted, turned and drew up abruptly by a nearby tree, almost shooting Rosalind over her head.

'That isn't the way to behave!' Rosalind reproved her. 'Is this where you belong, you pretty thing?'

The mare tossed her head in apparent agreement. Rosalind eased the reins over her head and tied them to one of the lower branches of the tree, glancing at her watch. It was rather early, she thought, to call, but nor did she want to pass the bungalow by without finding out who lived there.

It was getting hot now. Rosalind pulled off her sweater and tied it by its arms to the same branch of the tree as the reins. The bungalow had a dead look and, walking up the path that led to it, Rosalind had almost decided that it was empty and that she was wasting her time. But just as she was about to turn back, the front door opened and a European man came out on to the narrow verandah, smiling a welcome to her.

'Come in, come in,' he bade her.

She smiled back readily. He was hardly any taller than she was herself, his hair balding slightly, and his skin very fair and freckled. She thought he was about forty years old, but he could have been older, for his looks weren't the kind to change much with the passing years.

'I'm Rosalind Janes. Mrs. Hollings is my aunt.'

'Good lord,' said the man, 'so you've arrived, have you? I wondered if you would. Seemed more likely you'd sell out, sight unseen. Not that that would have suited me, you understand. I like it here myself!'

'Oh yes?' said Rosalind, completely bewildered.

'Yes. I'm John, by the way, John Piper. I expect you know all about me, though—'

'No,' Rosalind said quickly. 'I'm afraid I don't!'

Mr. Piper looked astonished. 'Thought Terry would have told you about me,' he said. 'Only friend he had here, you might say. More than that, I'm the manager, you know. It's only a title really, because I don't know the first thing about farming! Terry called me that to make me feel better about living here— But you don't want to hear about all that! What are you going to do with the place?'

Rosalind retreated into formality. 'The final decision is for my aunt to make,' she said carefully.

'Mrs. Hollings?' Mr. Piper averted his face as though the idea displeased him. 'Terry didn't often speak of his wife,' he added.

'I'm not surprised!' Rosalind said dryly.

For an instant Mr. Piper gave her all his attention. 'I don't suppose you remember Terry,' he said, somewhat pathetically.

'I remember him well!' Rosalind retorted, wincing at her own bracing tones. 'My aunt is only twelve years older than I am, and I remember her wedding well.'

'Really?' Mr. Piper smiled suddenly. 'I had imagined she was older. Funny the impression you get of people you've never met!' He gave her a sidelong glance. 'She must be very young,' he muttered. 'You can't be much over twenty yourself.'

'Twenty-five,' she told him, smiling. 'Beatrice is thirty-eight. Perhaps I should have said she's twelve and half years older than I am.'

To her surprise, Mr. Piper blushed. 'I - I didn't mean— You d-didn't have to tell me that!'

Rosalind laughed. 'No, I didn't. Uncle Terence has a lot to answer for where my aunt's concerned, though, and I'm on her side, you see. I don't want you to meet her if you're going to address her as "Mrs. Hollings" in the way you said it just now, and as you're bound to see her some time—' She broke off, wondering why she should think it necessary to explain herself to this man.

'You're protecting her!' Mr. Piper accused. 'Against me! But you don't have to worry about me! I'm completely harmless, I assure you!

'Are you?' Rosalind softened the inquiry with a smile, but the warning was there just the same. 'I just wanted to make sure.'

'Your aunt is a lucky woman to have your loyalty,' Mr., Piper remarked. 'Won't you come in? I'll have some tea made, or something, shall I?'

'Tea would be very nice,' Rosalind agreed sedately.

She was interested to see the inside of the bungalow. It was obvious that Mr. Piper lived alone. There were piles of clutter on every table, but he soon cleared a space for her to sit down, clucking over the various piles of papers, murmuring that it was absolutely fatal to get them muddled.

'But I don't suppose you'd be interested in that,' he sighed. 'I suppose you came to see me about the farm?'

Rosalind grinned. 'I found a mare in the stables and thought I'd ride round the farm to see what needed to be done. She brought me here.'

'Oh dear!' said John Piper.

'Does she belong to you?'

Mr. Piper shook his head. 'No, no. I believe Terry thought he might race her at the local races, but she hasn't the competitive spirit. No, I was just thinking that I'd forgotten all about her - and the other horses. I should have done something about them! I never thought they might be getting hungry.'

'Getting hungry?' Rosalind repeated. 'But, Mr. Piper, someone has been looking after them.'

'Really? Then I needn't have worried after all. I'm so glad,' he said vaguely. 'Now, you did say it was tea you wanted, didn't you?'

'Yes,' Rosalind agreed. 'Tea. If it isn't any trouble?'

'No trouble at all to me! I'll give a shout and have it brought along!' He went to the door and raised his voice a trifle. 'Er - Juma! Leti chai!'

A deep bass voice answered him at once. 'Ndiyo, bwana.'

'I can never remember his name,' Mr. Piper confessed with a worried frown. 'They don't have to bother! But Terry always said it wouldn't do, if we called them "bwana" too. I would find it much simpler myself.'

Rosalind made another attempt to talk about the farm. 'Mr. Piper,' she began smoothly, 'about the farm. What exactly was my uncle hoping to achieve here?'

'Achieve?' Mr. Piper looked really worried. 'What should he have wanted to achieve, my dear? He was happy living here. Yes, I think I may say he was happy here, though naturally he had regrets about all he had left behind him. He used to say he missed the social life, you know. Must have been quite a live wire before his family sent him out here. Something to do with his lungs, I believe. Was it that he only had one lung? I can't remember exactly. No, I don't think it can have been that, because one lung would be worse than two at this altitude!' His blue eyes flickered over Rosalind's face. 'Are you finding the altitude trying? It can be at first, until you get used to it. You ought to warn your aunt about that. Indeed yes! She may think there's something wrong with her, if she puts her back into anything and then finds she hasn't enough oxygen to finish it off. You'd better tell her all about it!'

Rosalind shook her head at him. 'Mr. Piper,' she tried again, 'has this land ever been properly farmed?'

'I really couldn't say! Don't know the first thing about it!'

'But I thought you said you were the farm manager?' Rosalind pressed him.

'I am! This is the manager's house. Terry said I could live here only on condition that I acted as his manager and stood between him and the Co-operative that has practically swamped us. Between you and me, he thought it a trifle disloyal that so many people sold out and left everything they had built up here. Only a few of us left now.'

Rosalind shrugged. 'Apart from our farm, the land looks pretty good,' she hazarded.

'Probably. I haven't given it very much thought. There's the tea plantation, of course. That makes a lot of money. We thought about growing tea here for a while, but we couldn't grow enough to make it pay. Got to join the Co-operative for a thing like that, and of course, we couldn't do that!'

Rosalind wondered why not, but there seemed to be little point in asking him. John Piper was pleasantly but quite definitely as mad as a hatter, she decided.

'What stock have you been running?' she asked.

'Stock? Oh, you mean cattle! I don't remember seeing any, for some time, now you come to mention it. There used to be a few cows at one time. I'm sure they were cows because I remember having to find someone to milk them. But that was a year or two back. Seem to remember Terry saying they were too much trouble by half and that he'd go in for beef instead—'

'Yes?' Rosalind prompted him eagerly.

'I don't know what happened to that idea,' John Piper said cheerfully. 'Can't remember at all!' There was a discreet knock at the door and his face brightened still more. 'Ah, here's your coffee, my dear. You drink it down and then I'll tell you everything I know about the farm. Oh, it's tea! Shall I send it back? You're sure you don't mind? Now, what is it that you want to know?'

Rosalind gave him a helpless look and sipped the fragrant tea he had poured out for her.

'Have you ever done anything on the farm, Mr. Piper?' she asked after a long silence.

Mr. Piper blushed a little. 'Well, no, not personally,' he answered her. 'But I used to listen to all Terry's plans for it in the future. I'm sure I can remember some of the things he said!' He smiled apologetically. 'Perhaps you'd like to tell me your plans?' he went on quickly. 'Yes, that will be the idea! You tell me what you want done and I'll do my best to help you.'

Rosalind swallowed the hot tea too quickly and choked. 'Thank you,' she murmured. 'You're very kind!'

'Not at all!' said John Piper, smiling nervously. 'Not at all!'

CHAPTER THREE

Tee tea did much to restore Rosalind's good humour. She accepted a second cup and smiled at John Piper.

'If you don't manage the farm, what do you do?' she asked him.

'I've said I'll help you all I can,' he answered bashfully. 'And I will! I have the right farming contacts, even if I don't know much about it myself. Actually, I'm a botanist.'

Rosalind's jaw dropped. 'A botanist?' The idea appealed to her. It seemed a nice, gentle occupation that was well suited to a nice, gentle man like John Piper. 'What exactly does it entail?'

His pale blue eyes glinted with an almost fanatical enthusiasm. 'Are you really interested? You don't have to mind if you're not - few people are! Only you see this place is unique in many ways for a botanist. The daylight hours are almost exactly the same as the dark ones all the year round. That's why Kenya grows such good coffee, by the way, though we're a bit on the high side for that. The tea is excellent though, don't you think? That's local tea you're drinking now.'

Rosalind looked at the liquid in her cup with new eyes. 'It's delicious!' she murmured.

John Piper nodded. 'It's one of the things the Co-operative does very well. They've had help from one of the big tea companies, as you can see by the notices all over the place, especially on the factory, but they leave most of the work to the manager. He turns his hand to most things. Be a good man for you to know.'

Rosalind pursed up her lips with disapproval. 'I have met him. He was there when we arrived yesterday. I don't think he wants to help us, in fact I'm sure he doesn't! He says we have one month to show we know what we're doing and then he'll do his level best to dispossess us!'

The indignation in her voice made Mr. Piper laugh. 'I gather you didn't like him? Funny that, he seems all right to me, but Terry couldn't stand the fellow. Perhaps he is a bit overbearing when it comes to his job.'

'A bit ? He was downright rude to us!'

John Piper shrugged his shoulders. 'Maybe he doesn't think much of women dabbling in farming. To him it's a serious profession, providing food and all that. He's right, of course, but it wasn't an attitude that appealed to your uncle. He liked to dabble in things.'

'It doesn't appeal to me either!' Rosalind said flatly.

John Piper looked amused. 'Should have thought you'd have seen his point of view! You're serious about pulling the farm together, aren't you?'

She nodded. 'Very.'

'Well then, I reckon he'll respect that.'

'But he doesn't! He thinks it's unfeminine to work the farm!'

John Piper laughed out loud. 'It must have been some conversation you had with him! Are you going to let it put you off doing what you want to do?'

'No,' Rosalind said slowly. 'If anything, he's made me even more determined to make a success of things. I spent most of the night thinking about it!' She blushed faintly as she remembered that she hadn't only thought about the farm during the night. 'Our capital is strictly limited and there's so much that needs doing. I thought about building up a dairy herd, but I don't know enough about the marketing of milk locally. I think we should ranch fatstock and sell it, if we can, in the European market. I read in the English papers that Kenya is about to sign a new deal with the Common Market, but of course we should have to find out more about it.'

'Wow! You don't hang about, do you?'

Rosalind frowned. 'We can't afford to,' she said frankly. 'The land looks in pretty poor heart, but it should support enough young steers to be earning something until we can do something about it. The first thing is to find a reliable breeder from whom we can buy what we need.'

Mr. Piper smiled. 'I have a cousin who'd help you out. I'll give you his name and address. He's offered before to let us fatten up some of his animals at a good price. You won't go far wrong with him!'

Rosalind sank back in her chair, allowing the feeling of relief to flow over her. It was only now that she realized what an unbearable burden of worry she had been carrying ever since Beatrice had told her about Terence Hollings' death. She couldn't afford to fail! She owed everything to her aunt and this was the only way she could repay her. She had to make a success of this farm, or— But the alternative didn't bear thinking about!

'Is your cousin interested in botany?' she asked aloud.

'Good heavens no! He's the tough, cowboy type! I think he probably shares your view that there's something cissy about botany.'

'Oh, but I didn't! I mean I don't! I mean I didn't say anything, did I?'

'No, you didn't say a thing!'

Rosalind bit her lip. 'I'm terribly sorry,' she said. 'I didn't even think it consciously, you know. I was surprised, but not critical!'

'Oh, I don't mind!' he assured her. 'Most people don't know the first thing about it. Would you like to see some of my work?'

She nodded, still afraid that she had hurt him. 'I'm not completely ignorant,' she told him. 'I trained at an agricultural college before I went to work on a farm. They had a very good department of plant pathology there and I was very interested in it.' She smiled. 'So you see I do know a petal from a stamen!'

'Glad to hear it!' He searched among his papers and pulled out a whole lot of half-finished drawings. 'I'm doing these for Kew Gardens,' he said modestly. 'What I do is to take a certain area and record every single thing that grows there. I only do these drawings of the rare stuff, because they take such a lot of time.' His whole face gleamed with excitement. 'Have you ever seen this before?'

Rosalind studied a drawing of what looked to be an orchid though she had never seen one that looked quite like it. She shook her head. 'What is it?'

His face flushed, his freckles showing up dark against his pink skin. 'Nobody knows. Nobody had even seen one before I found it.' His voice became a hushed whisper. 'If they confirm that I'm the first to discover it, they'll call it after me!' He laughed, embarrassed. 'If they do, I shan't have lived in vain!'

Rosalind found it difficult to be properly awed by the prospect and she wished Beatrice had been with her, for her aunt would have said all that was proper and would probably have been as pleased as John Piper was himself.

'Is it an orchid?' she asked him, mostly to satisfy herself that she had been right about it.

'Of a kind,' he agreed, and chuckled. 'That's the one good thing about your neglected fields, the wild flowers have it all their own way!'

She was intrigued. 'Is that why you stayed on here?'

'I. suppose so. The house was here and Terence didn't demand too much in the way of rent. Of course nominally I helped him manage the place, but neither of us knew the first thing about farming. He never bothered me and I didn't bother him. Can't think what he did with himself, to tell the truth.' He glanced up, his eyes frightened. 'I suppose I shall have to find myself somewhere else now?'

'I don't see why,' Rosalind reassured him. 'We can't afford any other manager and we can probably do with your rent! You'd better talk it over with Beatrice.'

'O-oh,' he said. 'I'm a little nervous—'

'You don't have to be with Beatrice. She's sweet!'

'I'm sure she is.' He sighed. 'Is she very efficient?'

Rosalind's eyes danced with laughter. 'Very!'

'Do you - do you think I should call on her? She might not care to visit me here, my being a bachelor. I shouldn't like to embarrass her.'

'I'm sure she'd love you to call on her!' Rosalind encouraged him.

'Then I will,' he said. 'I'll come as soon as you've had time to settle in. Your uncle didn't mind what kind of a mess he lived in. I don't suppose he ever cleared up after the fire?'

'No, he didn't,' Rosalind said with a hint of disapproval.

'Poor Mrs. Hollings! The house must have come as quite a shock to her!'

Rosalind chuckled. 'She'll survive! We're both pretty tough, you know!'

John Piper clucked his tongue against his teeth. 'I hope so,' he said, shaking his head. 'I hope so!'

The mare showed a marked reluctance to leave Mr. Piper's bungalow. Rosalind allowed the manager to hand her up, smilingly telling him that she had been unable to find a saddle, hence her bareback exploits. 'It's rather a nice feeling,' she went on. 'Except when the blanket gets twisted up. It's ages since I rode. I expect to be as stiff as a poker tomorrow!'

Mr. Piper stared up at her: 'You look a very pretty sight! A pretty girl and a pretty horse!'

'Oh, she's better than pretty!' Rosalind exclaimed.

The man looked amused. 'Can you find your way back all right?'

'I expect so,' Rosalind answered. 'Are you sure this mare doesn't belong to you? She came straight here, and now she shows no sign of wanting to go home!'

'What would I do with a horse?' John retorted. 'It isn't here she wants to come. She's accustomed to going further on towards the Co-operative, Terence allowed a girl he knew to ride her for him and she nearly always went that way.'

'I see,' said Rosalind. 'Then she'll have to change her ways! I shan't be going anywhere near the Co-operative if I can help it!'

She urged the mare forward and headed her towards the farmhouse. There was a moment when she couldn't be sure whether the mare would dig in her heels or give way, but then, with a flick of her head, she turned and went slowly back down the path, breaking into a trot as soon as they were clear of the trees.

Beatrice met her at the stables. 'You know, Rosalind,' she said as her niece led the mare back into her stall, 'the garden has possibilities. I'm going to clear what used to be the vegetable garden and get it planted as quickly as possible. Yohana says almost anything will grow all the year round as long as it has enough water. I think he might be right, because there are some strawberries round the back and there are some berries on them. Of course they want weeding! What doesn't?'

Rosalind wiped the mare down and saw that she had enough feed to keep her going. 'The fences are all to pieces, the fields are a disgrace, and most of the buildings are falling down,' she reported.

'Oh dear!' said Beatrice. 'What are you going to do?'

Rosalind grinned at her. 'I'm going to buy in some young stock and fatten them up on our weeds.'

'Can you do that?' Beatrice asked, impressed.

'Once the fences are secure, I don't see why not. I even have the name of a stock-breeder. He's the cousin of our farm manager.'

'Our what?'

'Exactly,' Rosalind drawled. 'He's rather sweet, as a matter of fact. I gather Uncle Terence rented him the manager's bungalow in return for some rather incompetent work on the farm and a modest rent. He doesn't pretend to be a farmer. He's a botanist. I think you'll like him.'

'I expect I shall,' Beatrice agreed. 'I like most people—'

Rosalind refrained from laughing with difficulty. 'He's coming to call on you when you've settled in, if it doesn't embarrass you!'

Her aunt's face was a study. 'Why does he think it would embarrass me? Ros, what have you been saying to him?'

Rosalind giggled. 'I think it has something to do with your no longer having a husband to protect you!' she said.

Beatrice eyed her with indignation. 'Is he sane?' she demanded.

'I think so,' Rosalind confirmed. 'He does the most beautiful drawings of rare plants.' Her eyes twinkled, enjoying teasing her aunt. 'I told him you were very efficient and that made him more frightened of you than ever!'

'Poor man!' grunted Beatrice. 'I expect you gave him a fright. Still, I'm glad he was able to give you the address of a stockbreeder. I thought you looked rather worried this morning.'

'I'm worried to death!' Rosalind exclaimed. 'Tell me more about your garden?'

Nothing loath, Beatrice led the way round the garden. Once upon a time it had been somebody's pride and joy. The flowering bushes still did their best in a jungle of tangled weeds and, here and there, some remnant of a herbaceous border struggled into life. But for the most part the garden was as neglected as the rest of the land.

'What do you suppose Uncle Terence did with himself?' Rosalind asked impatiently. 'How could he live in such a mess?'

Beatrice's face puckered up. 'I suppose he had his reasons.'

'Oh yes?' Rosalind jeered.

'He was my husband,' Beatrice said gently. 'I'd rather you didn't criticize him, love. Let's be grateful that he left this gorgeous place to us. I'm glad, glad we came, no matter what sort of struggle it turns out to be! I'd never realized before how suffocated I've felt these last few years!'

Rosalind was silent. It had been different for her, she knew, with the interest of her work, but she couldn't help thinking that her aunt was exaggerating a little.

'I'll tell you what,' she said. 'After lunch, let's get stuck in here and clear a space for your vegetables. We have to begin somewhere, so why not here?'

Beatrice grinned in anticipation. 'Yes, let's! Yohana will give us a hand. He's been a tower of strength in the house!'

'Is that the man the co-operative manager sent over?'

Beatrice smiled at her niece, amused by her prickly tone. 'It is. And I'm very grateful to him, so you can just shut up! You fight your battles with him over the farm if you must, but the house is my territory and, if it means I can keep Yohana for a bit, he's very welcome there.'

Rosalind felt betrayed. 'The farm is yours too,' she reminded her aunt. But Beatrice having had her say had no intention of arguing about it further.

'You'll feel better when you've had something to eat,' she said comfortably. 'I'll go and tell Yohana that you're back.'

The improvement inside the house was difficult to believe. With the rooms swept and the crumbling curtains removed from the windows, it looked bare but clean. Yohana was busy applying polish to the floor when they went inside, singing a rhythmic chant to himself as he moved from side to side.

'Goodness, you have been busy!' Rosalind gasped.

'I told you, I'm grateful for Yohana—'

The African stood up, grinning happily at them both, his dark brown eyes shy and not quite looking at either of them.

'Luncheon will be in ten minutes, memsahib,' he said grandly, and departed for the kitchen.

Beatrice flung herself into the nearest chair. 'Tell me about our land,' she invited. 'What the possibilities are - you know the sort of thing.'

'Well,' Rosalind began slowly, 'I haven't had time to analyse it, or anything like that. I'd say that much of it suffers from impeded drainage - nothing very serious, but bad enough. There's a layer of black soil over murrain. There are clumps of old trees with creepers growing all over them, mostly out of old termite castles. Whether that's a good sign or not I don't know. Other people's fields are beautiful. Heaps of white clover and edged with hedges of Mauritius thorn. It's some of the most beautiful country I've ever seen. Oh, and there's tea too, only I didn't see any. Mr. Piper told me about it. We have quite a lot of what I suppose could be described as raw bush. It's full of yellow cassias and a large flowering shrub with mauve flowers and surrounded by clusters of bees. I don't know its name.'

Beatrice surveyed her niece with some amusement. 'And what does that all add up to?'

Rosalind's face softened. 'I don't know,' she admitted. 'But it's very beautiful. I even saw a stream and a little waterfall. I would have gone over to take a closer look, but the mare refused to go anywhere except along the path towards Mr. Piper's bungalow.'

'But you think we'll make a go of it?'

Rosalind hesitated. She threaded her fingers together nervously. 'I'm rather excited about it,' she murmured. 'I don't know how we're going to find the right labour, or a million other things, but we'll make something of it, I know we shall - no matter what that horrid man may think!'

They set to work on the garden with a will that afternoon. Yohana did his digging with a hoe, swinging it high above his head and allowing it to fall with a swish, biting its way through the weed-covered earth. Beside him Rosalind used a fork which was rather big for her to manage, pulling the weeds out as she went.

'Where are you going to get your seed from?' she asked her aunt.

Beatrice paused in her priming of some fruit bushes she had discovered. 'Yohana says he can get anything we need,' she answered.

Rosalind felt a prickle of displeasure creep down her back. 'From the Co-operative?'

'I didn't ask him,' Beatrice returned.

Rosalind went back to her digging with a decidedly sulky expression. 'I wish we didn't have to accept anything from that man, Bea,' she muttered.

'If it makes you any happier I'm going to pay him for anything we have,' her aunt told her. 'Really, Ros, aren't you getting things a little out of perspective?'

'I don't like him!'

'We barely met him, dear. Give the man a chance. Perhaps he'll grow on you when you get to know him better.'

Rosalind went on digging. 'Perhaps,' she grunted.

Beatrice sat back on her heels, a slight frown wrinkling her brow. 'It isn't like you to take dislikes to people. What's the matter?'

'Nothing is the matter! I don't like being told I'm unfeminine, if you must know! How does he know?'

Beatrice restrained a chuckle. 'My poor love, can't you see that all the cards are in your hand? All you have to-do is to show him how wrong he is!'

Rosalind went on digging. 'And how do you suggest I do that?' she demanded.

Beatrice allowed her laugh to ring out, startling both her niece and the African who was working away beside her. 'If you need me to tell you that, perhaps the man is right!'

'Bea!'

'Then don't be so silly!' her aunt retorted. 'Really, Rosalind, I can't think what's got into you!'

Feeling rather small, Rosalind stopped digging and leant on her fork, looking dreamily across at the outbuildings. 'I don't know why, but he rubbed my fur the wrong way. I expect you're right and I'll get over it.'

'I hope so,' said her aunt. 'I don't ever remember seeing you in a sulk before and I must admit I don't like it!'

Rosalind gave her aunt a lopsided smile. 'I'm sorry, Bea,' she said.

Beatrice smiled back immediately. 'Think nothing of it!' She stood up, easing her back. 'I think someone is coming to call. I can hear a car coming.'

The car came into view a few seconds later, coming like a cloud of dust up the long slope that led to the farmhouse. Rosalind found her breath suspended as she watched the vehicle coming relentlessly nearer. She released it with a gasp and forced herself to breathe normally, her eyes still following the approaching car. Then she saw that it was a saloon of a pale colour and quite different from the one which the manager of the Cooperative had driven. It was not him at all!

Yohana didn't look up from his work as the two women put down their tools and walked round to the front of the house to receive their visitor. His hoe rose and fell in exactly the same rhythm as it had in the beginning. He was like a machine, never pausing for rest or to see where he was going. If he hadn't been sent by the Co-operative, Rosalind would have thanked her lucky stars for him, especially as he spoke a little English. Her aunt was right, she thought, she was being silly, and she gave the African a special smile before she went out of his sight, round the house.

The car hardly slowed down at all as it swung into the drive. The driver stamped on the brakes, causing a flurry of stones to fly up from behind the wheels. The door swung open and a young girl climbed out, dressed in forest green shirt and tailored trousers. She leaned her elbows on the top of the car and smiled across it at Beatrice and Rosalind.

'Am I interrupting you?' she asked throatily.

'Of course not,' Beatrice answered warmly. 'We've been working hard all afternoon and were just looking for an excuse to stop!'

The girl crinkled up her eyes, taking a quick look at the blue sky and the small scurrying clouds that raced round the horizon. 'But no one ever does anything in the full heat of the afternoon. You'll make yourselves ill!'

'Hardly,' Rosalind smiled. 'We were only clearing the garden.'

The girl tensed, looking at Rosalind with an expression the other girl couldn't begin to read. 'I should have thought you'd have started in the house,' she said. 'Or is it too awful to contemplate? Terry was the original remittance man! We always said he would have been better off in the Happy Valley before the war.'

'The house did need cleaning,' Beatrice admitted, tight-lipped.

'That's what I've come about,' the girl went on. 'Laurie sent me. He thought you could do with a hand to get the place liveable in. My name is Jennifer Carne, by the way. How d'you do?'

'How d'you do?' Rosalind responded.

'How very kind of - Laurie?' Beatrice said coolly.

'You know! Laurence Wilder!'

Rosalind blinked. 'I'm afraid we don't know,' she murmured.

Jennifer laughed. 'You met him yesterday. Don't say he didn't tell you his name? He's Mr. Big around here - the manager of the Co-operative. I thought you knew! He came back from here last night, breathing fire down his nostrils and saying you would be worse than poor Terry and that he didn't know how to get rid of you—'

'He isn't going to get rid of us!' Rosalind protested.

Jennifer gave another tinkling laugh. 'I'm so glad!' she said with apparent sincerity. 'I gather Laurence didn't make a very favourable impression on you either? You mustn't mind him, you know. It's only his way! I think he's a bit scared of us women and over-compensates by telling us what to do all the time! I'm his secretary, for my sins! Secretary of the Co-operative, actually, but I work for him. If he wasn't such a darling out of the office, I'd pack up and go back to Nairobi tomorrow, but one gets used to his ways and then one finds out that underneath he's really rather sweet. I never tell him so, of course, in case he gets ideas, but I'm madly in love, with him! That's the effect he has on every female for miles around! And that's why I'm here in working hours, because he told me to shift myself out here and give you a hand.'

'Come in and I'll make some tea,' Beatrice rapped out Rosalind's eyes swept over her aunt's face, a little amused to discover that Beatrice hadn't taken to Jennifer Carne, any more than she had taken to her boss.

'My aunt worked wonders inside this morning,' she chatted, as Beatrice strode into the house ahead of them. 'I escaped by pretending I was looking round the farm. I ended up by having a cup of tea with John Piper.'

'Oh, him!' Jennifer's dismissal of the shy botanist was complete. 'He's a bit wet, isn't he?'

Rosalind didn't know why, but she felt obliged to defend John Piper. She swallowed down the small spurt of temper Jennifer's light words had raised and smiled deliberately. 'I think he's probably a genius,' she said.

Beatrice jerked her head, her eyes meeting Rosalind's with a gentle look of inquiry. 'In what way?' she asked.

Rosalind shrugged. 'His drawings, I think. They're beautiful.'

'Well, he's a terrible farmer!' Jennifer exclaimed. 'He collects wild flowers all over the place, but I've yet to see him do a stroke of real work! Are you going to keep him on?'

Beatrice raised her eyebrows, giving her a rather forbidding expression. 'I believe he's coming to call on us some time. I haven't met him yet.'

Jennifer was not easily put out. She put a hand up to her immaculate nut-brown hair and smiled. 'May I look round?' she asked Beatrice. 'I've never been inside this house before. Your - husband didn't encourage visitors, not even pretty ones! The only person who ever came here was John Piper, and he didn't come often.'

Beatrice uttered a small sound of appeal. 'My husband preferred his own society,' she said stiffly.

'Evidently!' Jennifer agreed. 'He must have been mad to have left anyone as attractive as you are, Mrs. Hollings, on your own in England! Why didn't you come out here earlier?'

Beatrice refused to answer. She walked stiffly into the kitchen, only to find that Yohana had got there before her and already had the kettle on the hob. Rosalind tried to divert their visitor's attention away from her aunt's affairs by asking her about her work.

'Do you like working for the Co-operative?' she asked. 'It must be very interesting.'

'Not really,' Jennifer answered. 'I've had tea up to here, if you really want to know.' Her eyes glinted. 'It's Laurence who keeps me here. If it weren't for him, nothing would make me stay! But he isn't the kind of man to allow his fiancée, or anyone else come to that, to run his life for him - and if he stays here, so do I!'

'Oh,' Rosalind said faintly. 'Are you going to marry him?'

'It's an understanding, no more than that,' Jennifer admitted. 'It's me - I can't finally make up my mind! Laurence keeps on at me, saying that even a woman must be able to make up her mind what she wants, but it does no good. I love him, but the idea of spending the rest of my life at the back of beyond doesn't have much appeal!'

Rosalind wondered why she didn't feel more sympathetic. 'If this is the back of beyond, give me that every time!' she sighed. 'It's beautiful country round here.'

'Give me the city life any day!' Jennifer spread herself inelegantly over the sofa and smiled up at Rosalind. 'It will make such a difference having you here. It gets lonely with so few people to talk to. Come over to the office any time and I'll return the cup of tea your aunt is kindly making for us.'

'Thank you.' Rosalind went to the window and looked out at the superb view across the valley. 'I don't think Mr. Wilder would like me to come when you're working, though. He gave me the impression of having very set ideas on things.' Her mouth twisted into a wry smile. 'He doesn't approve of women farming, for instance, and I shouldn't like to get you into trouble—'

Jennifer's laugh drifted across the room. It was a well practised laugh and it was certainly charming, if not particularly sincere.

'I can manage Laurence!' she boasted. 'You come along whenever you like!'

Rosalind still hesitated, but at that moment Beatrice came back into the room, carrying the tea tray.

'Oh, am I looking forward to this!' she exclaimed. She eyed Jennifer caustically. 'It was kind of Mr. Wilder to send you over to see us,' she went on pleasantly. 'Can you sew, Miss Carne?'

CHAPTER FOUR

John Piper came to call the following morning, dressed in his best suit and looking as though his tie was about to choke him. In his hand he held an already wilting bunch of wild flowers.

Ts your aunt about yet?' he asked Rosalind, who was working in the garden. His voice was tight and constricted and his face brick red with the exertion of his walk.

Rosalind looked at him in some amusement. 'Yes, she's inside. Shall I give her a call?'

He cleared his throat, swallowing nervously. 'Perhaps she won't want to come out into the sun? We - we could go in, do you think?'

Rosalind put down her fork and smiled at him. 'She'll be very pleased to see you,' she assured him. 'Come in!' She led the way in through the front door, calling to her aunt. 'I'll make some tea. Ours isn't as fragrant as yours, but you'll just have to put up with it!'

She ushered him into the sitting-room, begging him to sit down. The poor man, she thought, could hardly have been more nervous. He sat on the very edge of his chair, leaping to his feet at the slightest sound.

'Am I too early? I can easily come back some other time.'

Rosalind pushed him gently back into his chair. 'My aunt has been up these last three hours,' she told him, laughing. 'Please relax, Mr. Piper. Beatrice is rather shy, you know,' she added, hoping that her aunt would forgive her. 'You'll have to put her at her ease by giving a lead to the conversation.'

'Y-yes. I-I prefer to be called J-John - if you don't mind? M-Mr. Piper is so formal.'

'Then you'd better call me Rosalind,' Rosalind returned cheerfully.

'Fair Rosalind?'

Rosalind's smile mocked him gently. 'We do our best to please,' she said.

But Rosalind was forgotten the instant her aunt walked into the room. Beatrice was looking very pretty that morning, she thought. Her head was held high and her eyes were very bright as she shook hands with John Piper.

'How very nice of you to come,' she said to him. She took the wild flowers from his hand, her finger idly tracing their faded beauty. 'Are these for me? It's a shame to pick them when they die so quickly.'

John Piper smiled, his nervousness completely forgotten. 'These are rather special ones,' he told her. 'I picked them out for you specially because they're all sufficiently rare to be of interest. Your niece told me you were interested in growing things and I thought you might like to look out for these.'

Beatrice's face softened. 'How very kind of you!'

'It's the only thing I know anything about. You must come and look at my collection—'

Beatrice smiled. 'I'd love to! I hope you really mean it, because if you ask me and then don't show them to me, I'll know it's because I've disappointed you with my ignorance.'

'That wouldn't be possible!' he exclaimed.

Beatrice stopped smiling. 'I'd try to learn quickly,' she promised him, with such unaccustomed humility that Rosalind stared at her. 'I've never met a genius before.'

John Piper looked completely bewildered. 'A genius?'

Beatrice nodded. 'Rosalind says you're a genius. She says your drawings are fantastic!'

The ready tide of colour rose up John's face. 'That's putting it too high!' he protested. 'I'm very good, but I'm not a genius - not quite!'

Beatrice smiled an odd little smile. 'You would hardly admit it if you were! I'll have to make up my own mind about it.'

'Any time you like!' John grinned at her.

Beatrice nodded as though she had expected his enthusiasm but didn't know quite what to do with it. 'You will stay on in the bungalow, won't you?' she said. 'We should hate to think we were driving you away from your home - and your work. You'll be able to advise Rosalind on farming matters too.'

'I'll do my best,' John promised. 'I've been thinking about stocking the farm, as a matter of fact. You'll have to get Laurence to help you to buy your cattle for you. He's the best man to ask, if you want to make a go of things.'

Rosalind stiffened. 'I won't ask him anything!' she exclaimed.

John shrugged. 'I think you may have to,' he began. 'There are all sorts of difficulties that I don't begin to know about. My cousin will have some of the answers, but farming at an altitude is outside his experience—'

'I'd as soon ask President Kenyatta to buy our animals for us!' Rosalind burst out. 'He'd probably be a great deal more polite about it too!'

Beatrice sighed. 'He was a bit brusque—'

'A bit!' Rosalind cried. 'Can you imagine him helping us? He only wants to get rid of us as quickly as possible! If we look as though we don't know what we're doing, he'll take it as another reason for dispossessing us and taking our land! And he'll probably try to get us as little compensation as the law allows just to spite us!'

'But Laurence isn't like that,' John protested.

'Of course he isn't!' Beatrice agreed. 'Rosalind sees red every time his name is mentioned!' She laughed, eyeing her niece with affection. 'And all because he won't believe she's tough enough to pull this place together on her own!'

'He was rude to you too!' Rosalind pointed out. 'He couldn't have been nastier if he'd tried!'

Beatrice's laughter rang free. 'Are you still upset because he said he wouldn't treat you like a woman until you behave like one?'

'His idea of a woman!' Rosalind reminded her.

'But, love, it'll be easy enough to make him eat his words. When he next comes be sweet to him—'

'Over my dead body!' Rosalind exploded.

Her aunt was still laughing. 'Let's hope it's over his,' she drawled. 'I can't manage without you quite yet!'

But Rosalind was in no mood for joking about Laurence Wilder. She excused herself abruptly, going out by way of the kitchen to order the tea she had promised John. She was being ridiculous about Laurence, she supposed, but she couldn't help it. She had always been completely mistress of herself, but if the mere thought of him could set her nerves tingling, could she be sure that she would behave any better when she encountered him face to face?

After an hour's hard work in the garden she began to feel better. She surveyed the neatly dug area with pride. The sound of laughter and eager chatter was still coming from the sitting-room, adding to her sense of achievement. She was glad that John liked her aunt, just as she had known he would. Beatrice had always had the happy knack of putting people at their ease and making them feel bigger in their own eyes. Rosalind smiled to herself. If anyone could winkle John out of his shell of loneliness, that person would be Beatrice!

She was still looking at the results of her labour when she heard the sound of a horse's hooves nearby. She looked up, startled, but there was no sign of anyone there. She felt the palm of her right hand anxiously, hoping that she was not going to get a blister from the handle of the fork. It was really too big for her, having been designed for a man, but the added weight helped each time she thrust the tips of the thin blades into the earth.

'Feeling sorry for yourself?' an all too well-remembered voice asked behind her.

She swung round. 'How dare you creep up on me like that?' she demanded.

'My, you are in a rage! Are you beginning to feel that you've bitten off more than you can chew?'

'Certainly not!' She strove for calm. 'But this is not your land yet, Mr. Wilder, and so I'll thank you not to treat it as though it was!'

His smile was maddening. 'But the scenery is so rewarding!' he drawled.

She couldn't help taking a look across the valley, and was forced to agree with him. 'Don't you have a view from your house?' she asked.

'Not like this one! That yellow hair is very becoming. Do you have to work at it to keep it that colour?'

She gasped with anger. 'It isn't yellow!' She bit off the words, knowing that it was fatal to argue with him. He would think she was encouraging him — he was conceited enough for anything! 'And I don't dye it! It grows that way!'

He put up a hand and gave a lock of her hair a tug, examining the roots with a grave face. 'Lucky girl!' he said. 'It's unusual enough to be striking with those great brown eyes and black brows!'

'I don't like personal remarks!' she brought out sharply.

'Would you rather I found you hideous?' he mocked.

'I don't care what you think!'

He stood with his hands on his hips, his eyes daring her, to do what though she didn't know. 'You ought to have a hat on,' was all he said. 'Get one with a brim to it that will protect the back of your neck.'

'I don't like hats!'

'There's a great deal that you don't like,' he retorted. 'I've a good mind to let you sulk on your own, young woman, but I don't see why your aunt should suffer for your ill humour!'

'I don't think she'd consider it suffering not to have to see you!'

'Perhaps not! You must be a disappointment to her,' he went on. 'Your looks bely you - such a wide brow and such a little mind!'

Rosalind flushed. 'Don't you mean a female mind?'

His eyes widened, the laughter in them plain to see.

'Are you trying to tell me that all women have little minds?' he drawled.

'No! You were telling me that!'

'I was? I don't think so, Rosalind Janes. I have a great respect for the feminine mind, but none at all for pretentious people who pretend to a knowledge they don't possess.' He picked up her hand in his and studied her palm carefully. 'You'd better put a plaster on that if you don't want a blister. I suppose you haven't done much digging?'

'Will you stop telling me what to do!' she stormed at him.

He raised his eyebrows, laughing at her. 'By all means,' he said soothingly. 'When you show me that you have enough sense to manage on your own!'

She picked up the fork, almost throwing it into the ground at his feet. 'You are the most conceited, the most pompous, the most—' She swallowed the tears of rage that had gathered in her throat. 'I've never met anyone like you!' she ended lamely.

'That's quite obvious, my dear!'

'Why?' The question was out before she could stop herself.

He grinned at her. 'You'd better work that out for yourself!'

She glared at him. 'Are you sure that I have sufficient wits to work out anything all by myself?' she demanded with a flounce as she pulled the fork out of the ground again.

'I think you might manage that - if you try hard enough!' he teased her.

With difficulty Rosalind restrained herself from throwing the fork straight at his head. Instead she stood quite still, her head thrown back, her lower jaw jutting forward, clearly showing her displeasure.

'Oh, go away!' she pleaded.

'I came to see your aunt,' he told her. 'If she asks me to go, I'll go at once!'

Rosalind folded her mouth primly together. 'Beatrice is talking to our manager, to John Piper. If you want to see her, you'd better come back some other time.'

'To John ? He doesn't know one end of an animal from another. However, I came to talk to her about the farm, so I may as well speak to them both together—'

'What about me?' she protested.

'I thought you didn't want to speak to me,' he murmured.

'I don't!' she informed him roundly. 'But Beatrice doesn't know anything about farming! If you have anything to say, you'll have to say it to me!'

But Laurence turned his back on her. 'Frankly I prefer talking to your aunt,' he said. 'But I expect she'll let you know my suggestions in time. She seems to have a great deal more faith in your abilities than I have!'

Rosalind tried to go on digging, but she was shaking. How dared he speak to her like that? How dared he? She flung the fork down on the ground and ran after him into the house.

He marched straight into the hall, calling 'Hodi?' as he went. Rosalind pushed past him and opened the door into the sitting-room with trembling fingers.

'Mr. Wilder has come to see you, Beatrice,' she announced.

Her aunt looked up, surprised. Rosalind saw that all her attention had been engaged by John Piper and she sensed, rather than saw, her resentment at the unexpected interruption. She cast Laurence Wilder a swift look of triumph, but he was apparently oblivious that his welcome was less than warm.

'Hullo, John,' he said. 'Mrs. Hollings, I believe I owe you an apology for the other evening. The truth is that I'd been hanging about waiting for you for what seemed like hours and I said rather more than I intended.'

Beatrice suppressed a smile. 'I think you should apologize to my niece,' she suggested. 'She hasn't forgiven you for calling her unfeminine.'

'Never that!' he retorted. 'I merely said I wouldn't cushion her from the realities of farming because she's a woman. There is a difference.'

'You said you wouldn't treat me like a woman until I behaved like one!' Rosalind reminded him.

'As you've been doing ever since!'

Rosalind felt herself caught in a cleft stick. If she said she had not, she would feel she was denying her sex; but if she said she had, she would be admitting the effect he had on her.

'Oh?' she challenged him. 'In what way?'

His eyes twinkled with mirth. 'I would scarcely linger flirting with a man in the garden!' he said, his tongue in his cheek.

'I never flirt!' Rosalind denied.

'I thought I detected a certain lack of practice,' he taunted her. He turned towards her aunt, seating himself comfortably in the nearest chair. 'I hope Yohana is being a help to you. He prefers working in a house to the factory, so, if he likes you, he may agree to staying on.'

'We'd never have managed without him!' Beatrice answered. 'Did Rosalind tell you that she's been right round our boundaries? She's hoping to find enough labour to re-fence the lot.'

Laurence looked surprised. 'Most people use hedges of Mauritius thorn. It's a good deal cheaper.'

'It also takes more than a month to grow!' Rosalind said.

Laurence pointedly ignored her. 'John and I can find you enough labour to plant the hedges,' he offered. 'John speaks enough Swahili to interpret your orders and take that off your shoulders. The next thing will be to stock the land in the most profitable way.'

Beatrice gave Rosalind a helpless look. 'We have our own ideas about that,' she ventured.

'Good. What do you plan to do? You haven't a vast amount of space to grow much in the way of crops. You'd do better to buy in young stock and fatten them up. The Co-operative does quite a lot in that line. Once your land is clean, I could sell you enough cattle to keep you going, and you could sell back to the Co-operative when they're ready for market. We make a similar arrangement with quite a few of our smaller farmers.'

'We have no wish to join your Co-operative!' Rosalind snapped out.

Laurence gazed at her with a lordly air. 'I'm not sure that your standards would meet our requirements,' he said smoothly. 'It would depend how successful you are in clearing up the land.'

John leaned forward, his face worried. 'How would we do that, Laurence?'

'Easily enough. You'd need some strong native stock that wouldn't be badly affected by the pests. Dip them every few days—'

'What pests?' Beatrice interrupted.

Laurence's eyes rested on Rosalind's furious face. 'Ticks mainly. My farmers are complaining that they're coming on to their land from yours. Some of them have a few native cattle they wouldn't mind lending you. Cows as a form of currency dies a hard death, even here,' he added dryly.

'We can buy our own cattle!' Rosalind insisted.

'You'd do better to accept a little advice,' he drawled.

Rosalind muttered something under her breath. She became aware of Beatrice's reproachful expression and blushed. Surely, she thought, her aunt couldn't be taking this man seriously? She bit her lip hard, thinking how necessary it was to beware the Greeks when they came bearing gifts and wondering how best to warn Beatrice that he wasn't to be trusted.

'I'd like to improve the grass,' she said loudly. 'It's very poor.'

Laurence nodded. 'That's one of the drawbacks of Sotik. It's a buffer state between the fertility of the Kisii to the west and the Kipsigis to the east. Even the Nandi lands are more naturally fertile than ours here. Ranching cattle is the best way to use the land.'

'I'm thinking of using more intensive methods,' Rosalind declared.

But Laurence only laughed. 'Well, Mrs. Hollings? Would you like me to arrange it for you?'

Beatrice looked quickly at John, who nodded quickly. 'I wish you'd call me Beatrice,' she began. 'Or am I too old for you to feel at home calling me by my Christian name?'

Laurence grinned. 'A mere chicken like you!' he grunted. 'You look much the same age as your niece - and you know it!'

Beatrice blushed daintily. 'I'm twelve years older and not nearly so glamorous! Rosalind received all the good looks that were going in our family!'

'Ah, but she hasn't your quaint maternal air,' he teased her. 'I'm thirty-five myself. Old enough to tell the difference between surface attraction and solid worth! We'll have to get together, Beatrice!'

'Willingly!' Beatrice laughed at him. 'But it's Rosalind you have to persuade about anything to do with the farm, not me. A smallholding is more my mark than ranching cattle!'

Laurence shrugged. 'It's your money! I'm not saying that she couldn't learn with experience.' His mouth twisted into a superior smile. 'The trouble is that we can't spare the time while she learns what she's doing. The farmers that I'm responsible to are all working on a penny-pinching budget, without any capital to speak of behind them. They could go under if their cattle caught anything from you. I've had enough trouble from one of my own pet schemes!'

'Well, thank you very much!' Rosalind stormed. 'Just because you were careless and had trouble, it doesn't mean that I shall! I'm well able to recognize a sick animal when I see one. Let me tell you, I'm quite well qualified to be let loose on the land! What qualifications have you, Mr. Wilder?'

His eyes glinted with temper. 'Let's hear about these qualifications of yours.'

She rattled off her qualifications, her college, and her experience, pleased in the knowledge that it would be as good as or superior to anything he could offer.

'And then you worked on a farm in Kent?' he inquired, giving nothing away.

Rosalind nodded. 'Hops, apple orchards—'

'Unfortunately, we grow neither hops nor apples here!'

Rosalind took a deep breath. 'I'm aware of that, Mr. Wilder. I thought you would understand from what I've been saying—'

'Oh, I understand, Miss Janes. You are eminently well qualified to farm in the Weald of Kent, or anywhere eke in England, no doubt, but you don't know the first thing about farming in Africa! You don't even appear to understand that you have anything to learn—'

Beatrice put a protesting hand out. 'That isn't quite true,' she defended her niece. 'Rosalind had doubts about her coming here in the first place. She told me she didn't know enough about this kind of farming. It was I who persuaded her to come and help me.'

Rosalind wished that her aunt had kept quiet. She could see from Laurence's face that he didn't believe her. He probably thought she was lacking in any sense of adventure and was holding Beatrice back for her own selfish reasons. Well, let him think it! She didn't care!

'I was pleased to come!' she claimed.

'I imagine so,' Laurence said dryly. 'I don't suppose you'd manage to land a comparable job in England!'

Rosalind clung desperately to the last, lingering shreds of her temper.

'Probably not,' she admitted.

'Certainly not if you refuse to accept advice, or accept your limitations and act accordingly!' he went on sharply.

Rosalind's hold on her temper snapped. 'Mr. Wilder, you have yet to tell us what your qualifications are for offering this advice unasked, for leaping to conclusions as to how I intend to manage this farm without bothering to listen to anything that's said to you, and for imagining that you're the only person in the whole of Africa whose advice we can possibly take!'

'Rosalind!' Beatrice breathed, scandalized.

'Well, Mr. Wilder?' Rosalind pressed him. 'Could it be because you're a man and therefore I mustn't dare to contradict you?'

To her indignation, Laurence laughed at this last sally. 'You shouldn't let your temper run away with your argument,' he smiled at her. 'You were building up quite a case for me to answer—'

'And which you haven't answered,' she reminded him.

'If I don't listen to you, it's your own fault,' he went on. 'So far your conversation has consisted of contradicting everything I say, not because you disagree with me, but for the very bad reason that you've taken it into your head to dislike me. And as for being the only person in Africa capable of advising you, I'm pretty sure that I'm the only person who's going to try!'

'Why shouldn't I dislike you?' Rosalind flared. 'You make it pretty plain that you dislike me!'

'On the contrary, I find you most amusing!'

Speechless, Rosalind glared at him. 'Amusing?' she repeated, momentarily taken aback, and he grinned.

'You're absolutely set on cutting off your nose to spite your face, aren't you?' he teased her. 'For a pretty female reason at that!'

The colour rose like two flags in Rosalind's cheeks. 'Oh, conceit!' she complained. 'And wrong at that!'

The mockery in his eyes was hard to take. 'Indeed?'

'Yes, indeed! You may dazzle Jennifer Carne and a million others—'

'Oh, I think you rate me too high at a million!' he drawled.

'Not at all,' she returned politely. 'The masses are renowned for their lack of discernment!'

'Rosalind!' Beatrice repeated. 'That's quite enough! I can only apologize for my niece, Laurence. I can't imagine what's the matter with her! It must be the altitude after living at sea level—'

Laurence burst out laughing. 'The altitude! Poor Rosalind, is the atmosphere too rarefied for you?'

Rosalind met her aunt's eyes. The situation was getting out of hand - and all because of Laurence Wilder. 'I'm sorry,' she said suddenly. 'Only I do think we can manage quite well by ourselves, can't we, John?'

John Piper cleared his throat thoughtfully. 'I don't think my opinion counts for much,' he managed. 'Laurence is the best expert we have, my dear!'

Beatrice smiled slowly and appealingly at Laurence. 'We're very grateful for your help, I can assure you of that! Pay no attention to Rosalind.'

Rosalind lifted her head. 'Please don't apologize for me again, Bea!'

Her aunt lifted her eyebrows thoughtfully. 'I am very grateful for any help you can give us,' she went on sweetly.

Any other man, Rosalind reflected bitterly, would have been embarrassed to have found himself a bone of contention between two women, but it was idle to suppose that Laurence was doing anything else but enjoy the situation. He particularly enjoyed having Beatrice as his ally, Rosalind noticed. She found his flattery of her aunt irritating and mentally castigated him as being insincere. Then, finding him watching her, she blushed knowing that he had read her thoughts.

'Our capital is very limited,' she volunteered, suddenly shy of him. 'You're not the only one who can't afford to wait.'

His expression softened. 'I gathered as much. You worry too much, my girl. Why don't you let me get the place organized and allow me to do the worrying for you. If we can fit your farm into the Co-operative programme, you'll be home and dry, you know. We don't allow our farmers to go bankrupt!'

'I've worked it out,' she went on, 'as best I can. I'd like to buy a pure-bred Sahiwal bull to serve the whole district. But I don't suppose you'd approve of that!'

'On the contrary, I think it may be a very good idea. You'd have to take care where you buy it! Do you have any ideas?'

'I've heard of a Mr. Samuels - and a Mr. Paul Conway.'

He nodded. 'Both very good people in the usual way. But I'm afraid their stock wouldn't do here.'

Rosalind flushed. 'Just because I found out about them by myself, I suppose!' she said childishly.

'Not entirely,' he returned. 'Anyway, whatever we decide, the first step is to clean your land. You can't run anything on it as it stands!'

Rosalind bit back an angry retort. Whatever we decide! It. would be her own decision! Hers and her aunt's! She wished she could think of some acceptable way of telling him so, but Beatrice had no such qualms. Sitting beside John Piper, her aunt positively glowed with relief and delight.

'I plan to grow maize as well,' Rosalind said flatly. 'I'm told I can get a yield of twenty-three bags to the acre with careful management. It will help with the feeding.'

Laurence grinned at her. 'You have been doing your homework!' He held out his hand to her. 'Shall we have a truce until you've settled down and can see which way you're looking?'

She accepted the olive branch with a reluctant smile of her own.

'If you can accept the fact that I'm not just a pretty face?'

'Now that would be more difficult!' he said.

Beatrice looked from one to the other of them. 'It'll be a mercy to know that we have you behind us!' she exclaimed. 'Although Terence always lived out here and I in England, I always felt that in the last resort I had a man somewhere in the background. I've missed that feeling.' She bit her lip and smiled mistily at both the men. 'It makes such a difference to know that you're going to help us, doesn't it, Rosalind?

But Rosalind was unprepared to make any such admission. She uttered a strangled gasp and pretended hot to have heard.

'A very pretty face,' Laurence mocked her.

Oh, how she hated that man!

CHAPTER FIVE

'Rosalind!'

Rosalind came reluctantly into the sitting-room. Beatrice's skill with her needle had borne good fruit. New curtains hung in the windows and her aunt was already busy fitting material over one of the chairs, preparatory to making a new cover for it.

'It looks much more like home!' Rosalind congratulated her. 'And I've finished digging your garden, with Yohana's help. He's going to bring the first of the seed with him tomorrow.'

Beatrice gave a satisfied grunt. 'Don't work too hard, love. You can't do everything single-handed—'

Rosalind flung herself into a chair. 'I think we make a pretty good team,' she remarked.

Her aunt looked at her over her spectacles. 'But not quite such a good team as we used to make. What's the matter, Ros?'

'What should be the matter?'

'I don't know. You didn't want to come, did you? I feel as though I rushed you into something and that you're taking it out on everyone all round you. That isn't like you, and it worries me. Were you getting interested in someone back home that I didn't know about? Is that it?'

Rosalind made a startled sound. 'Of course not! You know I used to go about with David, but there was nothing in that! He didn't approve of my doing a man's job. His taste runs to dolly birds, and I was never that!'

'You have the looks,' Beatrice said.

Rosalind made a face. 'But I want to go my own way, not make eyes at every likely male around!'

'There doesn't seem to be much danger of that!' her aunt commented.

'And it isn't true that I didn't want to come,' Rosalind went on, scarcely pausing for breath. 'I didn't think that I had enough experience to manage, but now I've looked round the challenge appeals to me. I don't say I can make us rich, but we'll be better off than we've ever been.'

'I don't want to be rich,' Beatrice answered. 'I want us both to be happy, which isn't quite the same thing. Working yourself to death to prove something to I don't know who doesn't seem much reward to me.'

'But we've always worked hard,' Rosalind protested. 'There's nothing new in that!'

'No,' Beatrice agreed. 'I'm really grateful to Laurence, though, for taking some of the burden off your shoulders. He saw at once that you needed help, whatever you like to think, and so you do! Why do you have to be so rude to him?'

'Me? But, darling, he's offensive to me every time he opens his mouth! I've tried being nice to him, but far from making things better, he accused me of flirting with him!'

Beatrice laughed at her niece's very real indignation. 'He has a peculiar sense of humour,' she admitted.

'I'll say. John has offered his help too, and he doesn't have to make personal remarks all the time! I like John. His advice is just as good as Laurence's anyway, in fact it may be better! At least he knows where we can buy some cattle, instead of going on and on about only he knowing anything about anything!'

Beatrice was silent for a minute. 'Is that how Laurence strikes you?' she asked.

Rosalind looked puzzled. 'How does he strike you?'

Beatrice looked up thoughtfully. 'As a man,' she said gently. 'A very attractive man. I imagine most men like him. He has a natural authority—'

'He certainly thinks he has!' Rosalind interposed.

'I think we might allow him that,' her aunt continued dryly. 'I, for one, wouldn't care to cross him. If you know in advance that the other person is going to win, it's much better to give in gracefully at the start before one has got in too deep.'

'Is that what you did with Uncle Terence?' Rosalind asked, without thought.

Her aunt's mouth quivered. 'I suppose so,' she said. 'I was always frightened of Terence, though I suppose I shouldn't say so. Not in the same way as you're scared of Laurence - Terence hadn't an atom of fun in him!'

Rosalind stared at her aunt. 'I'm not scared of Laurence!'

'You give a pretty good imitation of it, then!'

'Sheer imagination!'

'It's nothing to be ashamed of,' Beatrice said. 'Laurence obviously enjoys turning your world upside down, and one can see why. You rise beautifully to everything he says. I imagine he looks on that as encouragement—'

'Bea! You're as bad as he is! As a matter of fact, I much prefer John. If I never see Laurence again, it will be quite soon enough!'

Beatrice went back to her measurements. 'John is too old for you,' she said quite crossly. 'If you're going to fight with Laurence, we'll have to see who else there is locally. But I wish you wouldn't, darling. He'll soon stop striking sparks off you if you show that it doesn't annoy you. We can't afford to antagonize him. If he sets his mind to turning us out, he can easily make our efforts a miserable failure. We won't get labour, or anything else, without his say-so.'

'Then what am I to do?' Rosalind demanded. 'Surely he has sufficient female admiration from you, without roping me in as well?'

'Meaning?'

'Oh, nothing! It's obvious you think he's marvellous! Jennifer goes off the deep end every time his name is mentioned! I seem to be the only person around who sees him as he is.'

'Maybe,' Beatrice agreed affably. 'But please don't put me in the position of having to apologize to him again on your account. I never have before, love, and I don't ever want to have to do it again.'

Rosalind flushed. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'Though I think he asked for it!'

'Maybe, but he was a guest in our house.'

'And that excuses everything?'

Beatrice rose to her feet. 'To me it does,' she said.

Rosalind vowed to herself that she would never put herself in the position of having her aunt rebuke her again. In future, she promised herself, she would be sweetness itself to Laurence. Surely she had enough self-control for that. No matter how he ribbed her, or treated her as a sub-normal moron, she would be pleasant, kind and businesslike. Only she couldn't help hoping that it would be a long, long time before she was called upon to test her resolution.

It turned out to be a very short time indeed. Hardly had her aunt finished speaking than Laurence's car came up the drive and Laurence himself climbed out and came leisurely up to where Rosalind was standing.

'Hullo there! Busy?'

She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.

'Good. Run and fetch your hat, there's a good girl. I'm taking you out. I thought it was time you took a look at the Co-operative for yourself. It'll be good experience for you to see how we manage in local conditions.'

She longed to refuse him. 'My aunt—'

'Beatrice will be pleased to see us on a more friendly footing. I was talking to her on the phone and told her I might be over.'

'She might like to come too,' Rosalind said in a small, timid voice.

'To protect me, or to protect you?'

Rosalind swallowed. She clenched her fists beside her, determined not to let her tongue run away with her if she could possibly help it. 'I'll fetch my hat,' she said.

Travelling in Laurence's car was a very different thing from the small car that she and Beatrice had bought themselves in Nairobi. It was large enough to sweep over the bumps in the road with a minimum of trouble, and high enough not to have to worry about the young bushes that grew everywhere, even in the middle of some of the roads.

'You're looking tired,' he said as they turned out of the drive into the public road. 'Why don't you take a couple of days off?'

'You know quite well why!' Rosalind said, only remembering to smile right at the end. 'Beatrice has put every penny she has into the farm and—' She broke off. She had no intention of telling him that her own capital had gone into the venture too. He would only laugh at her for being a fool.

'It won't help if you make yourself ill. John tells me you've been doing some of the re-fencing yourself. Don't you listen to anything anyone says to you?'

'Of course.'

'Then why not plant hedges of Mauritius thorn? You're too small to dig holes for posts.'

'I seem to have managed,' Rosalind said flippantly.

Laurence's jaw tightened. 'Where did you buy the new fencing?'

Rosalind blinked. She kept her voice light and friendly, but not too friendly, though the effort was beginning to tell. 'That is none of your business,' she said.

'I'm making it my business,' he returned grimly. 'Whoever it is, you can consider the sale cancelled. I'll send some of my people over to plant your hedge for you. If you're going to ranch your cattle you won't need your fields divided up.'

'Oh, but I will! You forget, I plan to grow my own feed.'

'Forget it!' he grunted.

'I can't afford to forget it.' Her good resolutions forgotten, Rosalind glared across at the strong lines of his face. 'It's easy enough for you to hand out advice like — like Moses just down from Sinai, but I'm the one who has to make the place pay! More, I have a responsibility to Beatrice to see that we make a success of coming here. Uncle Terence would never allow her to set foot in Kenya, and she feels guilty enough at coming, even though he's dead. If it were a failure, she would never forgive herself for doing something that he had forbidden.'

'I thought Terence left the farm to her in his will?'

'She was still his wife,' Rosalind explained abruptly.

'You're fond of Beatrice, aren't you?'

Her eyes filled with tears. She blinked them away impatiently, hoping that he hadn't noticed, for he would be sure to think her a sentimental fool, or even worse.

'She's my aunt.'

'What about your parents?'

Her lips quivered. 'They were killed in an accident when I was fifteen. Bea was much younger than my mother, and my parents often had her to stay with them. We were used to one another, so I went to live with her. I owe everything to her.'

'And so you came out here with her?'

Rosalind nodded. 'She sold her house, and here we are!'

'A brave lady!' he commended the absent Beatrice.

'That's why it's got to work. She never had a penny from Uncle Terence. She's been hard up ever since I can remember, though she insisted on paying for my training. She ran a smallholding, selling the vegetables, fruit, and young plants locally. When she wasn't doing that, she was sewing or knitting filling orders for all sorts of unlikely people. I admire her very much.'

'She's a fine person,' he agreed. 'That's why I want to help her too. Rosalind, you must see that you've got a better chance of making a success of things if you accept my help?'

'Perhaps I do,' she admitted. 'But you can't want to be rid of us and help us, can you? I don't trust you, Mr. Wilder.'

'You've made that abundantly clear, Miss Janes!' He smiled at her and she looked away quickly. He was unbelievably attractive when he looked like that, a slight, devilish lift to his eyebrows, and a wry twist to his strong mouth. 'I'll have to see what I can do to change your mind this afternoon. What do you want to see first? The tea?'

'If you like,' she said indifferently.

'We'll be picking soon and be too busy for sightseers. When we get really going flat out, everybody lends a hand. If you want to earn your hedges, Miss Janes, that will be the best way for you to do it.'

She refused to look at him again. Even when she didn't, she was aware of his smooth, suntanned flesh, and the moulding of his face, and even the set of his head.

'I thought you'd decided to call me Rosalind,' she murmured.

'I will, if you don't snub me by calling me Mr. Wilder again,' he promised.

'All right, Laurence,' she said with difficulty. 'Is Jennifer the only person who calls you Laurie?' she couldn't resist asking.

His eyes met hers and he yawned. 'Know anything about tea?' he asked.

'Nothing at all!' she admitted.

His eyes quizzed her. 'Not with all those impressive qualifications of yours?'

'We don't grow tea in England,' she answered, imitating his tone when he had told her that neither hops nor apples grew in Kenya.

'That's better,' he approved. 'A little impertinence does much to cement a friendship!'

'Mmm? I'd forgotten for the moment that you're a superior being,' she retorted. She found herself grinning like the Cheshire cat and could only marvel at herself for allowing herself to be beguiled so easily. 'Does Jennifer always agree with you?'

'She hasn't much choice, as I employ her,' he answered. 'Nor is she interested in tea. That's the trouble with girls who use a job as a meal ticket until they can find a better one to marry, they're seldom interested in their work or anything to do with it. I sometimes wonder why she stays.'

'Don't you know?' Rosalind asked.

'I suppose your imagination has been working on it ever since you first met her?' he mocked her. 'You're essentially feminine after all, aren't you? Did you and she enjoy a nice gossip when she came over?'

'Not really.'

'What does that mean? That you didn't have a good gossip?'

Rosalind shook her head. 'You have to know the people concerned to have a good gossip,' she turned away his question. 'But it was nice to see another girl for a while. She says it's pretty lonely out here.'

'On the edge of beyond? I think she does find it lonely, but I shall be disappointed in you if you find you have the time to be lonely! When I first came here, it was just after a storm and the whole way up the road I could see the end of the rainbow resting on the hill where my house is. The land here has had a touch of magic for me ever since.'

'Did you find the crock of gold?' she asked.

Laurence turned and looked at her, stopping the car apparently in the middle of nowhere. He put up a hand and fingered her hair.

'Have I?' he asked her.

She shook her hair free of his touch with an angry gesture. 'I thought we were going to look at tea! I wouldn't have come if I'd thought—'

'If you had thought what?'

She hesitated. Perhaps he hadn't intended to flirt with her. Perhaps he didn't even realize how easily he affected her. Why should he? It was humiliating enough for her to know that a man she didn't like, and had absolutely nothing in common with, could reduce her to her present state just by fingering her hair. No man had undermined her confidence so effectively; no man had ever made her so devastatingly aware of her own femininity.

'I thought we came to look at the tea,' she said.

'We did!' He smiled slowly. 'What's more we've arrived. I want to show you how we work in these little patches of tea into the Co-operative. You see, it's thoroughly uneconomic to have an acre here and an acre there, yet that's exactly what we do. The minimum acreage to justify a factory is about two hundred acres, and it's best if it's all under one management. The leaf must be plucked regularly, at the moment it's ready, and rushed to the factory before it has time to deteriorate. This is quite a consideration when you're dealing with a peasant community. When the tea is planted in little plots, dotted round the countryside, every man has to know all the different processes himself. He has to be able to prune, to pluck properly, and so on. If he fails to master the proper techniques, the quality of the leaf falls off and we all end up in the red!'

'Is that tea over there?' Rosalind asked him.

He nodded. 'This man has quite a few acres. Hence the windbreaks and those trees which he has planted over there to give shade.' He laughed suddenly. 'Grevillea robusta, in case you were wondering!'

Rosalind took a closer look at the bushes. They were all pruned in the same way, to provide a flat surface at the top to make the plucking easier.

'How do you know when to pluck? You said they were almost ready?'

'That's right. The intervals between plucking are about seventy to ninety days. You see the level at which it's been pruned. We pluck down to that level.' He pointed into one of the bushes. 'See the fish-leaf? We pluck down to there from the time of bringing the bush into bearing. Loss of crop results if we leave plucking too long, because it becomes necessary to break back and discard extra leaves. Quality is as important as quantity, and that's the lesson that has to be constantly rammed home. Our experience is that the best tea is made from flush that consists of two leaves and a bud. It's almost impossible to maintain that standard in the field, however, but we do our best.'

As they walked back to the car, he pointed out the necessarily good standard of the road and the ease of transport to the nearest factory. 'We have our own lorries of course, and collecting points and schedules are rigidly adhered to. The leaf can't hang about for hours or bang goes the profits. It meant a careful siting of the factory. It wouldn't be much good if nobody could approach it by road every time it rained!'

Rosalind found his sense of urgency exciting. 'These bushes look pretty prosperous,' she remarked.

Laurence laughed. 'Amos is a good farmer,' he said. 'Once he'd got over the feeling that it's infra dig for a man to work on the land. It's considered women's work to till and dig around here. When he first started, he used to hide all his implements every time anyone came to see him. Then someone started saying that his wife was worth her weight in gold if she could achieve all this single-handed! Now he doesn't care who sees him with his panga in his hand!'

'Perhaps his wife did do most, of the work,' she objected.

'She doesn't come from round here,' he answered, amused. 'She finds it cold and hates the early morning mists that we get because it's so high. She grumbles that her maize doesn't grow as well as it does in the valleys, and she's forced to feed her children on potatoes. Nobody likes to change the habits of a lifetime, not even if it means a better standard of living. I'd like to show you a small pilot scheme I have of my own, that I'm hoping will come off, though it's hard work making anyone see the advantages!'

'A tea experiment?'

He shook his head. 'I own some land on the other side of Sotik. It's mostly scrub land, barely suitable even for ranching cattle. I thought I'd try ranching game instead. It's a practical proposition, because I know other people who've tried it, but it goes against local convictions.'

'Why? Does it introduce disease to the area?'

'There is that danger, but we haven't had any trouble in that way yet. No, it's more that it undermines a whole way of life. To most of the people here, cattle is the major currency. Europeans look at cattle as potential meat. All the time the British were here they tried to improve the African stock with the idea of cutting down on their numbers. But the African doesn't see things in the same way. He seldom eats beef. The pastoralists eat milk and blood, mixed with a little urine to curdle it. They keep it for about a week, until it's a bit like cottage cheese.' He laughed at her revolted expression. 'It isn't as bad as all that!' he teased her. 'And that's not all. They use cattle dung for building their houses, and the urine is useful for tanning leather and as an astringent for the face. The family's whole economy is based on their cattle.'

Rosalind struggled with her revulsion, hoping that she looked cool and professional. Such ideas took a little getting used to, but she had every intention of winning in the end.

'Then the immediate advantages of ranching game don't apply?' she said briskly.

'I think they do,' he claimed. 'Too many cattle are eating out their environment. Antelopes are a much more suitable animal for Africa. With a little care one can ranch up to twenty different species on the same area, if enough attention is paid to the feeding patterns of each animal in the wild. One can raise one's stock density to about four times that of cattle. To give you an obvious example, giraffes eat the high trees and the tops of bushes; the eland eats the lower bushes; and the grass is eaten in different ways by at least four other species. Zebras, for instance, eat the upper part of the stem. Its stomach allows it to eat a high rate of incredibly low quality food that nothing else wants. The topi eats the lower part of the stem, and the wildebeeste eats the horizontal leaves. None of them interferes with the feeding habits of the others. And of course all of them make excellent eating!'

'It sounds all right,' she admitted. 'What are the disadvantages?'

'Antelopes produce a very concentrated milk and not much of it. Their dung comes in little pellets which isn't much good for building, and their urine is too concentrated to be of use in the same way as cow's urine is. It means a lot of people having to change to a completely different basic economy.'

'It would help save the wild animals, wouldn't it?' Rosalind hazarded.

'Right. Even hippo meat makes good eating. Why shoot them out and replace them with cattle?'

'Oh, Laurence, 'I'd love to see the wild animals!'

He grinned. 'A bit of enthusiasm suits you, Miss Janes. I'd love to show them to you, but it will have to be some other time. This is a business trip, remember? You want to see our fatstock, don't you?'

She agreed that she did, though she couldn't help being disappointed. No fatstock could have quite the same feeling of romance as zebras and wild antelopes running over the plains in the valley.

'I will take you, I promise.'

She blushed. 'You don't have to! I mean, you'd probably prefer to take someone else. I expect Jennifer would like to go with you.'

'Jennifer? Don't be ridiculous. The wild isn't her idea of heaven!'

But this Rosalind couldn't believe. 'But if you like it—' she began.

'That doesn't matter to Jennifer. She prefers Nairobi any time!'

'But how can she? If she's going to live here—'

Laurence gave her an ironic look. 'Jennifer will never live here, or anywhere like it! She may fancy herself as my secretary for a while, but the city lights will soon reclaim her.'

'And you don't mind?'

He shrugged. 'Why should I? I like the bright lights myself.' He started up the car and drove swiftly along the road they had come, turning off at the fork in the opposite direction to the one that led up the hill to the Hollings' farm. 'We have two or three farmers whose places I'd like to show you. None of them have as large an acreage as you have, but they all started with much the same problems. The first fellow runs crossbred Sahiwal cows which he hopes to mate with a. purebred Channel Island bull. The results should be worthwhile. He started out with native stock and has had to wait a long time for his success.'

'How long has it taken him?' Rosalind asked dreamily.

'He fought in the last war. It was what he saw in other countries that made him ambitious to have his own place when he came home. He took his land from the bush himself, cutting down the trees and planting the hedges. It must have been glorious country when it was covered with forest. Look at the leaves on that tree!'

It was true that no two trees seemed to be of the same variety. There were large-leaved, blowsy trees, and some with leaves in tight clusters. Rosalind knew the names of none of them, but she liked the slender, silvery trunks which they all had in common. It was true, she thought, the virgin land must have been even more beautiful than it was now.

'I want a purebred Sahiwal bull,' she said aloud. 'My land isn't lush enough for Channel Island, or anything fancy.'

'Strictly a beef woman?' he teased her. 'You're wise to leave milk alone,' he went on more seriously. 'I wasn't going to suggest that you had a milk herd. This fellow has quite a few native beasts still on his land, though. I wanted you to see them, so that we can arrange for him to run them on your land for a bit. Afterwards, I plan to take you somewhere else to show you some steers that Rafael arap Moshe is fattening up for the Co-operative. I think they're just right for you too.'

Rosalind came out of her dreamy state of enchantment with a bang. She put up a hand and swept her hair back over her shoulders. 'I thought you understood,' she said. 'I'm not doing anything for the Co-operative. I want to be my own boss. I want to do it all myself!'

'You'll change your mind when you've seen some of our farms,' he said easily.

Rosalind clenched her fists. 'I won't! I'm going to buy my stock from John's cousin and there isn't a thing you can do about it!'

He laughed. 'I can warn Beatrice off,' he retorted. 'She'll listen to me, even if you won't!'

'But it isn't all her money,' Rosalind pointed out. 'Some of it's mine! You can't force me to change my mind!'

He still looked amused. 'My dear girl, I wouldn't try! It's time you learned some of the facts of life out here, that's all, and then you can make up your own mind!'

She lifted her chin, determined not to give an inch. 'I'm listening!'

'You're not! You've closed your ears and your mind! Well, I'm not talking at any daft female just for the sake of it, so you can take that expression off your face and use your eyes instead!'

'I'm listening,' she repeated. She gave another stubborn lift to her chin and turned to face him, daring him to convert her to his way of thinking.

'All right,' he drawled. 'Fact number one! Any girl who leads with her chin as you do deserves what's coming to her.' He bent his head and kissed her hard on the lips. His arms grasped her hard against him and, struggle as she did, there was no way of escaping him. It was a long, leisurely kiss that paid no heed to her indignant efforts to be free. And then she didn't want to be free. She gave way to the pressure of his hands behind her back and shut her eyes, longing for the kiss to go on for ever. But almost immediately he released her, pushing her away from him. 'You see! That's what you'll get every time you stick your chin out at me!'

Rosalind swallowed hard, trying to collect her scattered defences.

'And what else?' she mumbled.

'Fact number two is that cattle bred at a low altitude don't do if you bring them up to a height. It has to be the other way round. You'll never make a go of it with John's cousin's stock.' His eyes looked deep into hers. 'So you see, my dear, whether you like it or not, you'll have to pocket your pride and accept my help. And that is exactly what you're going to do. Okay?'

Rosalind nodded, completely beyond speech. She put a hand up to her mouth and wondered at the turmoil of emotions within her. How could she hate him if, when he kissed her, her whole being responded to his touch?

'Good girl! We'll go and look at these cattle while you're in a suitably meek frame of mind, and then I'll take you home.' He flicked her cheek with his forefinger and smiled at her. 'You know,' he said, 'I like you a whole lot better with that well-kissed look. I think it goes well with your yellow hair!'

CHAPTER SIX

Mr. arap Moshe received them with a gentle courtesy that Rosalind found appealing. She had no wish to admire his steers, nor see the progressive ideas he had brought to his land, but neither could she disappoint him by showing her lack of interest. She began by asking all the right questions in a desultory way and ended by being as enthusiastic as he was for the welfare of his stock.

'The calves are very small,' she commented at one point.

'They are half as big again as our pure native stock,' he confided. 'Soon, we have great plans to sell our meat in Europe—'

Rosalind stared at him. 'But that's exactly what I want to do!' she exclaimed. 'I read an article about it in the newspaper. With improved transport, we ought to get access to the Common Market.'

'That is right!' Rafael arap Moshe agreed. 'Mr. Wilder has been talking of this for a long time. Without the Co-operative we should all be too small to compete in such a market, but together we have the strength for anything!'

Rosalind cast a surreptitious look at Laurence. His poker-faced expression made her angry. Why couldn't he have told her that he had already been thinking about the European market when she had first mentioned it to him? Worse, why did he persistently treat her like a halfwit?

'Miss Janes is going to farm the Hollings place,' Laurence told Mr. arap Moshe. 'Her aunt is Terence Hollings' widow.'

The African spread his hands in a gesture of regret. 'Has your aunt no sons to care for her?'

Rosalind shook her head, smiling. 'Only me,' she said.

He put back his head and laughed. 'A woman is no support for one's old age!' he said certainly. 'One's insurance lies in having many sons to feed one and care for one when one can no longer work. A woman will go to her husband's family and be lost to one.'

'I wouldn't desert my aunt for anyone!' Rosalind declared.

But Rafael arap Moshe only laughed the more. 'That is because no man has claimed you.' He turned his attention back to his young steers, pointing out the faint humps that broke up their sleek, straight backs. 'Another generation and the humps will be completely gone,' he said with satisfaction. He sighed and looked at her with a troubled expression. 'Your land has been allowed to go back to the bush. Who will help you to work it?'

'I plan to do it myself,' Rosalind told him.

'The Go-operative will help you,' he suggested. His voice was very deep and soft, making it seem quite the obvious step for her to take. But she wouldn't! She wouldn't allow Laurence any say in the running of the farm - not if she could help it! 'Mr. Wilder will find you good stock and a good market for your beef.'

'I don't like Co-operatives!' she insisted.

Mr. arap Moshe looked at her in astonishment. 'What other way is there for small farmers like ourselves? Once our land belonged to the tribe. It was free for everyone, as free as the air we breathe, or the sky above us. Then the white man came with different ideas. To him, the land is property. It was many years before we could understand this. Now we do. But it is better to have a mixture of both ideas. We own our own land, but we work it in common with our whole people through the Co-operative. What can we do alone?'

'I could manage alone!'

'In a hundred years!' Laurence put in.

'Yes, but these are his people and naturally they want to work together—'

Laurence looked bored. 'Don't you want to be part of this district?'

'Of course I do!'

The two men looked at each other, dismissing her with amused superiority. They stopped speaking in English, reverting easily to Swahili which Rafael arap Moshe understood more easily. She might just as well not have been there for all the attention they paid to her.

Mrs. arap Moshe entertained them for tea. She wore a dress and a scarf over her head, tied in a knot at the back of her head. She spoke no English at all. She was, however, extremely proud of her housekeeping, pointing with delight to the pre-cut and wrapped loaf from which she had made some sandwiches and the butter which came from her husband's small dairy. Rosalind ate a couple of the sandwiches and waited in vain for someone to address a remark to her. But they never did. The two men talked non-stop to each other. She could imagine that they were discussing Rafael arap Moshe's farm and methods, and business to do with the Co-operative. They probably even talked about her own land and what she should do with it, but as she couldn't understand a word of what was being said it wasn't very helpful to her.

Time slipped by and her annoyance grew. How dared they ignore her so completely? As a display of sheer bad manners it took some beating! She frowned at Laurence and he lifted an eyebrow at her.

'Well, have you made up your mind?' he asked her.

'Made up my mind about what?'

'That you can't fly in the face of reality, what else? Are you going to accept the facts of life?'

Her face flamed, remembering the feel of his lips against hers. 'I'd like to talk it over with Beatrice before making any decisions,' she said with as much dignity as she could.

The amusement in his eyes undermined her valiant attempt to look meek and gentle. Her eyes kindled dangerously. 'You can hardly deny me that!' she snapped.

'Why should I?' he retorted.

Because you want my land! She bit off the words before she could say them, knowing how easy it would be for him to defeat her. Instead, she shrugged her shoulders and managed to smile.

'Because you find it hard to mind your own business, and even harder to allow that a mere woman might know how to do anything for herself!'

His eyes swept over her. 'Oh, scarcely a woman,' he drawled. 'More a mere slip of a girl!'

He went back to talking to Mr. Arap Moshe in Swahili, ignoring her tight-lipped displeasure with a completeness that was far worse than any words. Mrs. arap Moshe offered her another sandwich, smiling gently, but Rosalind had no appetite left. If she could, she would have rushed out of the small, square thatched house of which the arap Moshes were so proud, and run as far away from Laurence Wilder as she could go. Pride alone kept her seated on the orange box that was the best the room offered in the way of a chair. Pride, she felt, was the only thing left to her.

At last Laurence stood up to go. He and the African shook hands, exchanging a last joke together. Laurence put a possessive hand on Rosalind's shoulder, signalling for her to go before him through the rather low door that led out of the house. The full heat of the sun made her take a step backwards and she stumbled against his hard body. His grip on her shoulder increased and she winced away from him, taking the opportunity to smile at Rafael arap Moshe and to thank him for showing her his farm.

'I hope my place will eventually look as good as yours!' she said politely.

'It will. The Bwana Wilder will guide you. Good-bye, memsahib. You must visit us again. I am sure we can be of use to each other.'

Rosalind thanked him. Laurence's hand was back on her shoulder and she was wondering how to shrug it off. It rang all kinds of alarm bells in her mind, and yet how could she be attracted to someone she disliked as intensely as she disliked Laurence Wilder? Almost equally balanced with the desire to run was the desire to move closer still and to make him fully aware that whatever he might think she was all woman when she was near to him.

She sat as far away from him as she could in the car, intent on her own thoughts. He set the car in motion and drove easily back along the road they had come, taking the right fork back to the Hollings farm. When they came in sight of the gate, as badly in need of a coat of paint as everything else on the farm, Rosalind gestured to him to stop.

'Please, Laurence, I can walk from here!'

He drew into the side of the road without a word. She felt his eyes on her face as she opened the door and prepared to climb out.

'I hope you have found it an instructive afternoon?' his voice mocked her.

The ready colour climbed into her cheeks. 'Very, thank you.'

He touched the collar of her shirt. 'Oh, Rosalind, I'm not deceived by that meek face, let me tell you! What ridiculous plan have you got into your head now?'

'I told you,' she said coolly. 'I'm going to think about it, before doing anything.'

His laugh lent fear to her movements and she almost fell, she was in such a hurry to get out of the car and to shut the door behind her.

'There goes that chin again!' he taunted her. He waved a hand in salute, easing the gear-lever forward. 'This time I'll allow you to escape, fair Rosalind. Be seeing you!'

She stood on the edge of the road for a long moment, shaking inwardly. Laurence's car disappeared from her sight, but she made no effort to move. Somehow, she thought, she had to decide what she was going to do, and having formed a plan she had to stick to it no matter what happened. Only thus could she prove her independence of the Co-operative and Laurence Wilder, and that, for the moment, was the most important thing in her world.

She walked slowly up the drive towards the house, picturing it in her mind's eye as it would one day be, when the roof was completely restored and the woodwork renewed and repainted. In some ways it would be nice to cast the burden of getting the place in working order on to Laurence's broad shoulders. Everywhere one looked, there was so much to be done. But that was a temptation she couldn't afford to give way to. Laurence might trifle with her and pass on unscathed, but she doubted that she had a tough enough skin to do the same. It was safer to avoid all contact in that direction and to concentrate on the things that really mattered, such as her work.

How she knew the house was empty it was difficult to say. The front door stood open in apparent welcome, but inside there was only silence. It was the first time Rosalind had returned to the house and found Beatrice had gone out. She was dismayed to discover that she was childish enough to resent it. Where could her aunt have gone? And why, this moment, when she wanted to discuss the farm with her?

She went into the kitchen, hoping to find Yohana, to ask him to make her some tea, but he too was absent and the back door that led into the kitchen was firmly locked. Rosalind filled the kettle and plonked it down on the stove. A thin wisp of smoke rose from the otherwise cold fire. It was too bad! If she poked the embers it would probably go out, and if she didn't, it would go out anyway!

It took her all of five minutes to convince herself that she had been successful in putting the fire out. She eyed the monster with dislike and wondered what to do next. Where was Beatrice?

The kindling was wet, but she found some kerosene in a paint pot and dipped them into that. The fire lit easily after that, though she almost put it out again by heaping too much charcoal on top too quickly. She blew desperately through the grate, no longer caring about the ash that clung to her hair and her would-be white shirt. But the time the kettle was singing on the hob, she was exhausted and her throat was dry with dirt and thirst.

The telephone rang just as the kettle boiled. Rosalind went to answer it, knowing that she sounded more than a little desperate as she bellowed hullo into the mouthpiece.

'Oh, good, you're back,' her aunt's calm voice came over the wire. 'Did you have a good time?'

'In patches. Where are you, Bea?'

'John asked me over to visit with him. I told Yohana he could take the afternoon off, darling. John suggests that you come over here and have tea with us here. If you want any, that is, you may have already had some?'

Rosalind wondered at the feeling of complete bewilderment that enveloped her. John had asked Beatrice to tea! But they had nothing to do with one another! She had come to look on John Piper as her friend, not her aunt's! Then, even as the thoughts formed in her mind, she knew how silly she was being. One didn't possess one's friend so that they could be friendly with no others! She and Beatrice had many friends in common, people that they both liked, so why not John Piper? Rosalind didn't know why not, but the uneasy feeling that she didn't want Beatrice and John to like each other too much persisted.

'I'd like to come,' she said aloud. 'I have some farm matters I want to discuss with you both.'

Beatrice sighed. 'Can't we forget the farm just for this evening?' she suggested. 'I've been having such fun, looking at John's collection of flowers. You were quite right, Ros! I'm inclined to agree with you that the man is a genius!'

Rosalind licked her lips. 'Sorry, Bea,' she said. 'This discussion won't wait. Laurence won't wait!'

Beatrice sighed again. A great, gusty sigh that spoke of her complete indifference far more vividly than any words would have done. 'Can't we do what he wants without a whole lot of discussion and argument?' she asked.

'No,' Rosalind said flatly. 'He's not to be trusted!'

'Oh, really, dear! Well, if you must discuss whatever it is, you'd better talk it over with John. You know that I would rather do whatever Laurence suggests, and with as good a grace as possible, but as what I think obviously doesn't count with you, it won't do any harm to have John tell you as well!'

Rosalind grasped the receiver more tightly. 'Don't you think you're being a little unreasonable?' she suggested.

'No, dear, you are!' Her aunt sounded thoroughly exasperated. 'We'll expect you in about a quarter of an hour, okay? Oh, and John says we may as well stay on to dinner.'

'All right,' Rosalind agreed. 'Thank him for me, will you?'

'Thank him yourself!' Beatrice retorted, and rang off before Rosalind could say anything further.

It took Rosalind only a few minutes to change into a dress and to brush the cinders out of her hair. It took rather longer to groom her mind into a more amiable mood. As Beatrice had never shown any signs of being impatient with her before, any more than she had ever felt obliged to apologize for her before, Rosalind could only conclude that she really was at fault in some way. It was like walking a tightrope - it was as impossible to go back as it was to go on. Laurence Wilder had exploded into their lives and nothing could ever be the same again.

The car was sitting in the garage. Rosalind presumed that John must have called for Beatrice which, considering his nervousness, was nice of him. She backed the car out into the drive and drove fast down the short track to John's bungalow. She was greeted by the sound of her aunt's laughter and found herself frowning as she walked in through the open front door.

John and Beatrice were seated side by side at the table, their heads close together as they pored over John's collection of drawings. Now and again their shoulders touched and they didn't move apart as quickly as they might have done. Rosalind studied her aunt grimly, thinking she had never seen her look so young or so animated.

'Hullo,' she said abruptly.

Beatrice leaped to her feet. 'Hullo, dear. I'm afraid the tea is cold now. Shall I make some more?'

'Juma can do it,' John put in.

'Oh yes, I - I'd forgotten all about him for the moment,' Beatrice admitted, looking a bit embarrassed. She looked across at her niece. 'Sit down, Ros. You look like an avenging angel, standing there, looking cross.'

'I am cross!' Rosalind affirmed.

Beatrice hunched her shoulders expectantly, but John only smiled. 'That man certainly puts you in a pelter!' he teased her. 'Even your hair stands on end at the thought of him!'

Rosalind found herself laughing. 'The fire had gone out in our cooker,' she explained. 'By the time I had it lit I had more ash on me than in the grate. I had to brush it out. It's the electricity that makes it stand up.'

'Whatever it is, it makes you look very pretty, my dear,' John went on.

'Thank you, kind sir,' she smiled back.

'The pleasure is all mine. Now, what's the difficulty? Your aunt and I are all ears!'

Rosalind suspected that Beatrice was trying not to listen at all, but because she was really worried, she hurried into speech.

'Laurence says you can't breed cattle at a low altitude and then run them at a high altitude,' she burst out. 'He can't be right about that, can he?'

'Does it matter'? Beatrice interposed.

'Of course it matters! If we're going to buy our stock from John's cousin, we have to be sure that we can ranch them successfully up here.'

John crossed his legs and spent a long time lighting his pipe, sucking on it with an absorbed expression and expelling the smoke into the air in gulps.

'If he told you that—'

'I don't think it's true for a minute!' Rosalind flared up. 'He wants us to fatten steers for the Co-operative. I'm sure that's what's behind it!'

John grinned. 'And you haven't swallowed the bait?'

'Not entirely.' Rosalind shook her head. 'I don't know what to think,' she added dismally.

'Why don't you do as he suggests? ' Beatrice asked reasonably.

'Because I hate his wretched Go-operative!'

'You know,' her aunt said, 'I think you're going soft in the head. When I think of the hours I listened to you extolling the value of co-operatives while you were at college, I wonder to hear you revile this one, which seems to me to be working particularly well!'

'Ay, it is,' John agreed with her. 'Laurence certainly knows what he's doing when it comes to anything to do with farming. You could do a lot worse than accept his advice. He knows what he's talking about, I don't!'

'But, John—'

'No, really, my dear. Laurence is all right. I know he didn't hit it off with you, but don't hold it against him for ever. He's done good work here and he'll do better still when he's proved some of his schemes to the government's satisfaction.'

'But he doesn't want us here!' Rosalind protested.

'Rubbish! I shouldn't say it with Beatrice here, but it was Terence he wanted to get rid of, and I don't blame him. I tried to keep the place in some sort of order, but I'm no farmer, as you'll have gathered. Terence didn't care what happened to the land. It's not surprising Laurence was suspicious that you'd be as bad as he was. He had never met Mrs. Hollings. All we knew was that she wouldn't come out here and live with Terence—'

'He didn't want her to!'

John sucked hard at his pipe. 'He didn't tell us that. It wasn't any of our business, so we didn't pry—'

Beatrice raised her face, all her recent pleasure gone. 'I suppose you all judged me unheard!'

'Not really,' John said comfortably. 'I don't think we thought about it much. We knew Terry was married and that was that, rather, until he died. We wondered what you were like then, naturally. After all, you were the new owner of the place.'

'But it wasn't like that!' Beatrice protested.

Rosalind reached out a hand and squeezed one of hers. 'It's okay, Bea! No one would think it your fault once they'd met you.'

But Beatrice scarcely listened to her. Do you?' she asked John.

'I wouldn't presume to guess,' John answered. 'I think a marriage is between two people and them alone. It doesn't behove outsiders to take sides.'

'No, you're quite right, of course,' Beatrice said. 'Besides, you were Terry's friend, weren't you?'

'Let's say I knew him.'

Beatrice nodded. 'I sometimes wonder if I really knew him at all. Still, you won't want to talk about that! I'm sorry the subject came up.' She hesitated and then she burst out, 'I wish you'd let Laurence have his way, Ros, and let us all have a little peace!'

Rosalind exchanged glances with John. He looked completely unperturbed, even lacking in interest, whereas she could have bitten out her tongue for having been the unwitting cause of bringing Uncle Terence into the conversation.

'You know,' said John, much as if he were discussing the weather, 'Terence Hollings is best forgotten. He left little enough behind him for us to remember. You did say you were staying for dinner, didn't you?'

The dinner was excellent. Juma served it, clearing the table of John's many papers despite the latter's worried exclamations in case something should be lost. Juma, knowing John Piper well, merely laughed in the back of his throat and went on tidying the place up. Beatrice was the only one who helped him. She fingered John's drawings lovingly, lost in her own thoughts, while John and Rosalind went on discussing the farm.

'I wanted to buy my stock from your cousin,' Rosalind sighed. 'I want to be independent of the Co-operative so badly! It must be possible!'

'I'll find out,' John offered. 'Almost anyone in' cattle would know. Meanwhile, a pretty girl like you should be enjoying herself, not creasing her brows with worries! You look very pretty tonight—'

'So you said,' Rosalind smiled at him, hoping to put him off.

'Very pretty indeed. It's hard not to be a little in love with you, my dear. You warm the cockles of a man's heart!'

Rosalind was aware of her aunt's glance and felt herself blushing. 'John Piper, what a shock you'd get if I were to take you seriously!'

But John only laughed. 'I've been a confirmed bachelor for so long that I find it quite exciting to entertain two ladies at once! It's not surprising that you should go to my head!'

Rosalind knew it was his way of teasing her, yet it warmed her to think that he found her attractive, even liked her. Her encounter with Laurence had upset her more than she had known. Every time she thought of the way he had kissed her, she shook inwardly. Of course she hadn't wanted it; she had done her very best to free herself from his restraining embrace, at least she had to begin with. She tried to think of something else, anything else, so that she didn't have to admit the humiliating truth to herself that in the end she hadn't resisted him at all. Worse, she had clung to him like a drowning man seeking the breath of life!

'Your freedom is precious to you, isn't it?' she said lightly to John.

He chuckled, 'It was!'

She frowned thoughtfully. 'It's the most precious thing in my life!' she told herself as much as she was telling him.

He looked amused. 'You think that now, as I did, but then, snap, and everything is changed! I can't see how anyone with large brown eyes and that silver-gold hair can escape the fate in store for her!'

Rosalind had a vivid picture in her mind's eye of Laurence's mocking face and she found herself trembling. 'I don't see why looks should have anything to do with it!'

she muttered doggedly.

'Then you're a fool!' Beatrice told her.

Only John laughed. Rosalind was grateful to him though when he turned the conversation into other channels and she was left to her own thoughts, with only an occasional comment coming her way.

When dinner was over, Beatrice hardly waited for Juma to serve the coffee before she stood up, saying she was tired and thought she would go home.

'I expect you two will go on discussing the pros and cons of these wretched cattle for hours!' she said, sounding thoroughly disgruntled and quite unlike herself. 'I'll drive myself home in the car. John will drive you, Rosalind, when you're ready to come, I expect.'

'That sounds like a good idea,' John said quietly.

Beatrice winced. 'I'll be seeing you,' she said to Rosalind. She shook hands with John without looking at him. 'Thank you for asking me to visit you. I've enjoyed myself.'

'Come again soon,' he encouraged her.

She looked surprised, her eyes meeting his fleetingly. 'Oh, I don't think so,' she murmured, confused. 'You must come to us!'

Rosalind sat in her chair, trying hard not to remember exactly how Laurence had looked when he had smiled at her, while John went outside with her aunt to see her to the car. When he came back, she tried to pull herself together, and smiled across the room at him.

'John, what am I to do about Laurence?'

John grinned at her. 'Let him go hang and come and work for me!'

'But I couldn't!'

'Why not?' He looked at her thoughtfully. 'No, perhaps you couldn't. I should give Laurence his head, my dear, and let him do the work for you.'

She eyed him anxiously. 'Seriously?'

'Quite seriously.' He sat down opposite her. 'I like your aunt,' he said finally. 'Terence Hollings must have been a fool!'

'A perfect idiot!' Rosalind agreed.

'Mmm. He struck me as a man who chased butterflies and didn't know what to do if he happened to catch one. He had no friends that I know of.'

Rosalind smiled. 'I'm prejudiced,' she said. 'I'm afraid I disliked him very much.'

It was pleasant to sit in John's untidy room and sip his coffee, but Rosalind too was tired from the events of the day. She smothered a yawn, but not before John had seen it.

'Come on,' he said gently, 'I'll take you home.'

John's shooting-brake was elderly and practically without shock-absorbers. John, himself, drove badly, riding on his clutch, and accelerating and braking alternatively, without apparent rhyme or reason. She found herself driving for him, braking hard with her foot against the floor. It was a relief when they arrived at the Hollings front door. Rosalind slipped out of the car quickly and thanked him for his hospitality.

'Come over any time,' he offered eagerly.

She watched him back the car and speed down the drive again with a complete disregard for the bumps and dips that had appeared in the neglected surface. She opened the door and went inside, surprised to find her aunt still up and sitting in the sitting-room.

'What are you doing?' she called out. 'Would you like a drink of some sort?'

Beatrice came out into the hall. There were shadows under her eyes, but she looked quite cheerful.

'You're earlier than I expected,' she said.

Rosalind yawned happily. 'I'm tired too,' she confessed. 'Going out with Laurence is like being put through a shredding machine!'

Beatrice looked at her, her eyes hurt. 'Is that why you enjoy John's company? You've certainly bowled him over!'

'I like him well enough,' Rosalind said carelessly. 'Don't you?'

Beatrice shrugged. 'Don't hurt him!' she said suddenly.

She kissed her niece briefly and hurried up the stairs. Rosalind stood in the hall, looking after her. It was the first time that she had ever been aware of something tangible standing between herself and her aunt. Their usual complete understanding of one another was disturbed and they were both in danger of injuring themselves on the broken pieces. But it wouldn't happen if she could help it! It was probably no more than having to adjust to a strange country and the high altitude - and the ghost of Terence Hollings lingering on in his house and on his land!

CHAPTER SEVEN

Rosalind was wide awake at six o'clock. The view from her window was still grey and misty, waiting for the sun to appear across the rim of the horizon to give life to the trees and the whole stretch of the valley. In this light one could imagine what the farm would be like when it was prosperous. One could not see the tufted, uneven grass, the dying trees, or the rotten fence. All that could be seen was the sweep of the land and the distant, smoky fires where some nomadic Africans were baking corn-cobs in the embers before they started work.

With a little shiver, she turned away from the window and began the business of getting dressed. It was too early for Beatrice to be awake, so she crept down the stairs in her stockinged feet, intent on having a good ride before breakfast.

The little mare greeted her with pleasure. Plumes of breath came from her delicate nostrils as she trotted briskly across the yard and out into the dew-laden fields beyond. Rosalind drew her heavy sweater closer about her, wishing that she had brought a coat, but at that moment the sun burst up over the horizon and the whole countryside was filled with its golden aura. The birds sang and chattered in an ecstasy of movement in the trees, lovely to look at, their radiant colours flashing in and out of the shadows of the trees, their beauty as vivid and translucent as their song. Seeing them, the idea that songbirds were necessarily plainer than those who relied on their plumage to attract was gone forever. Cinnamon-chested bee-eaters vied with the superb glossy starlings; black-headed orioles, mostly yellow in colour, danced past the ever still Narina's Trogon, with its green back and scarlet underside. A flash of mauvey pink brilliance would give away the position of the Tacazze Sunbird, with long, curving bill to sip the nectar from the wild flowers that John Piper was busy recording. A white- headed wood-hoopoe was seeking its food from below the bark of dead branches where beetle larvae could be found. Rosalind even saw a crowned hawk-eagle, waiting, impassive, for an unlucky monkey to stray too far from its tribe.

Rosalind urged the mare into a canter, delighting to feel the strong muscles of her back merge with hers as they flew over the ground. With no saddle and only a blanket, now damp from the morning dew, the sensation of being united with her mount was marvellous. It was a primitive sensation of naked, physical power. She was sorry when she had to rein in the mare as they reached the boundary line, broken and useless, between the Hollings land and her nearest neighbour.

Somehow, she thought, she was going to have to tell Laurence that she would agree to his suggestions. She could see for herself that she would never be able to manage on her own. There was too much to do and, unless he provided it, she had no labour to help her. If he had been another man, she would have accepted his help and been grateful, but Laurence was a phenomenon that she had never met before and hoped she never would again. He had only to raise an eyebrow in her direction and she was fighting mad! They would never get on, she told herself dolefully. And how he would crow over her when she admitted that she had to have his help. She could imagine it now; the mocking smile and the arrogant set of his head. He would make her eat humble pie, enjoying every minute of it, and give her a pat on the head for being a good girl. He probably did the same to every girl in the district! Except Jennifer. It was hard to remember that Jennifer Carne meant something more to him, they made such an unlikely combination, but then perhaps he liked soft, pretty young women with pretty, kittenish ways and worshipful dispositions. He probably did at that! Rosalind sighed ruefully. It didn't make it any easier for her to haul down her flag of independence and let him walk all over her carefully cultivated theories of equality between the sexes!

Rosalind turned the mare for home in a chastened frame of mind. If she had to do it, she decided, she had better get it over with. She would go over to the Co-operative straight after breakfast and see Laurence before she lost her nerve. She would feel better once she had faced him - and at least Beatrice would be pleased!

Yohana was in the kitchen when she went in through the back door. He wished her good morning in his deep, liquid voice and went on frying the eggs and bacon for breakfast.

'I'm hungry enough to eat the lot!' Rosalind said, sniffing the air appreciatively. 'Is my aunt up yet?'

He shook his head. 'The memsahib is asleep. I take her tea, but it gets cold while she sleeps. I not wake her.'

'No, don't,' Rosalind agreed. 'She was looking tired yesterday.'

Yohana nodded. 'New country, new troubles!'

How right he was, Rosalind thought. Troubles had beset them at every turn ever since their arrival!

She Went through the kitchen and up the stairs to see if Beatrice was awake yet. There was no sound from her room and, when Rosalind pushed open her door, she could see first the untouched tray of early morning tea and then her aunt's hunched-up body beneath the bedclothes. She was just going to turn away when the telephone bell went.

'Darn it!' said Beatrice. 'That's the second time this morning!'

'I thought you were asleep!' Rosalind said accusingly.

'I would be, if I could!' her aunt wailed. 'Go and answer it, Ros. It's probably for you anyway.'

Rosalind ran lightly down the stairs and lifted the receiver. She wished she had had time to tell Beatrice what she had decided, for her aunt still had the traces of misery on her face and the news that her niece was going to give in and let Laurence have his own way was just what she needed to restore her usual kind good humour.

'Hullo,' she said into the telephone, and then remembering that the caller would probably not know who she was: 'Rosalind Janes speaking.'

'Oh, good!' said Jennifer's voice. 'I hoped it would be you!'

Rosalind wondered what she was supposed to say to that. 'Oh?' she queried.

'Well, I thought you ought to know— Jennifer's voice trailed off. 'But perhaps you already know?'

'Know what?' Rosalind asked patiently.

'Well, you know how it is, I don't want to upset Laurie by telling you something he doesn't want you to know. I'd feel disloyal! But I do think you ought to know, dear. I think he's mean to you, I really do - I told him so last night! Oh, Rosalind, we had the most gorgeous time! He took me out for a midnight picnic in the moonlight. He really has what it takes, hasn't he? I mean, even you must have noticed! I know you dislike him and all that, but he is madly attractive, isn't he?'

Rosalind tried to sound less harassed than she felt. 'It sounds delightfully romantic!' she said dryly.

'Oh, it was! I've never met anyone who made me feel as he does!'

Rosalind's patience was wearing decidedly thin. 'I should hope not! If you are going to marry him, he ought to make you feel something special, shouldn't he?'

Jennifer giggled happily. 'Mrs. Laurence Wilder! Sounds distinguished! It will have been more than worthwhile, cutting myself off up here for so long. He'll be the lion of Nairobi when I get him back there!'

'But he can't manage the Co-operative from Nairobi!' Rosalind protested.

'He won't! Once I get him safely there, he can get a proper job. We may even go home to England.'

Rosalind's mind boggled at the thought. 'Oh?' she said faintly.

'I don't mind telling you,' Jennifer went on, 'though I'd appreciate it your keeping it to yourself, but I was beginning to wonder about Laurie and me making a go of things. After last night, though, I know I've got him just where I want him! He's mine, every last little bit of him!'

'Oh?' Rosalind said again.

'That's another reason why I thought you ought to know what he's up to,' Jennifer hurried on. 'He's made such a thing about making you work in with the Cooperative, as if it mattered to anyone but him what kind of a pickle you get yourself in. Men are so conceited, aren't they? Nobody else would care if the Hollings land sank without trace! Anyway, he's got this thing about your weeds and so on spreading on to clean land and nothing I can say will shift him—'

'Nothing I can say either!' Rosalind put in.

'Well, you wouldn't really expect him to listen to you, would you?' Jennifer answered with magnificent aplomb. 'I mean he hasn't any particular feeling for you, has he?'

Rosalind took a deep breath. 'Only intense irritation,' she admitted.

'There you are, then!'

'Yes, but—'

That's what I'm trying to tell you about, if you'd only listen. He told me last night that he's told Rafael arap Moshe to run his herd of native cattle on to your land first thing this morning. He was pretty pleased with himself about it!'

'Was he?' Rosalind said grimly.

'I thought you ought to know,' Jennifer added. 'I mean you might want to see them settled in, or whatever you do with cattle.' Her voice became gleeful and full of anticipation. 'I thought you might want to stop him, or speak to Laurie about it. He really ought to have asked your permission, don't you think?'

'Yes, I do,' Rosalind said. She was grieving inwardly as she considered how close she had been to giving in to him and now he had to do this to her! If he had only waited, she would have accepted the cattle and done everything he told her to do. But now she couldn't possibly do that. It was too much! She couldn't allow him to give the orders without even consulting her. She couldn't do it! It was too much to expect of her!

She brushed away the tears that breached her eyelids and slid down her cheeks. Why couldn't he have waited?

'What are you going to do?' Jennifer asked. There was something about the way she asked the question that made Rosalind think that the other girl was enjoying the situation to the full. She probably enjoyed the sight of someone defying Laurence, especially when the great man held all the cards and could dispose of her as easily as swatting an irritating insect. There was more than a little cruelty in Jennifer's make-up; the reverse side of her female, feline playfulness.

'I don't know,' Rosalind said reluctantly. 'Nothing, probably.'

'Nothing? But you can't let him get away with it without doing something! He'll do as he likes with you, if you let him get away with this!'

'What would you suggest?' Rosalind asked.

'Me? A brief, feminine laugh came from the other end of the line. 'I don't know anything about that sort of thing!' Jennifer claimed. 'Honestly, I can only barely find my way round the Go-operative office! I don't think a woman should get too involved in business, do you? I think she's made for marriage and looking after the house, things like that!'

'Children?' Rosalind suggested tautly.

'Well, one has to think about that! Someone has to do something about all this over-population. I sometimes wonder if we have the right— Still, that isn't your problem, is it, dear? I'll ring off and let you think about it, shall I? Perhaps your aunt will be on your side this time. I hear Laurie can do no wrong as far as she's concerned. So tedious for you!'

Rosalind jumped visibly. 'Who told you that?' she demanded.

'Who do you think? Laurence finds her interesting and triste. He's always talking about her - so boring!'

Rosalind wondered if he talked about her too. If he did, she was sure Jennifer would find it much more boring than talking about Beatrice, but she hoped he hadn't. She found, to her dismay, that she didn't like the thought of Laurence discussing her with anyone. Supposing he even told Jennifer about kissing her! But he wouldn't do that - would he? Her cheeks flamed at the thought.

'Jennifer, I have to go,' she said aloud.

'Of course you do. You give that man a piece of your mind! Do him good!'

Rosalind felt cold at the thought. 'Good-bye,' she said. 'Thank you for ringing and telling me.'

'Not at all! I thought you ought to know,' Jennifer laughed. 'I'm on your side, Ros. I don't believe in allowing men to get the whip hand. It so easily becomes a habit with them!'

Rosalind replaced the receiver in its cradle and went slowly into the dining-room, her appetite for breakfast completely destroyed. Beatrice had come downstairs while she had been talking to Jennifer. She sat at the table, wrapped in her dressing-gown, picking at the food Yohana had put in front of her.

'Who was it this time?' she asked.

'Jennifer Carne.'

'I thought she'd forgotten all about us! What did she want?'

Rosalind hesitated. 'She rang up to tell me that Laurence had told Rafael arap Moshe to run his native cattle on to our land.'

'Oh,' said Beatrice.

'I could kill him!' Rosalind ground out.

'Oh dear, I knew you wouldn't like it!' her aunt cried out.

'What do you mean you knew? You couldn't have known. He didn't say a word about it yesterday. And you didn't see him then, anyway!'

'No, he rang up this morning,' Beatrice explained. 'He was the other person on the telephone. It rang and rang, so in the end I got up and answered it. I was rather rude about people who rang up in the middle of the night, and then Laurence said it was he and how sorry he was for waking me up. In the end he had me apologizing to him for being so irritable, though I still think that a quarter past six in the morning is a bit much!'

Rosalind grinned. 'I hope he accepted your apology nicely?' she said.

Beatrice chuckled. 'Yes, he did! My word, you have to hand it to him, don't you? He really is one of the most charming men I've ever met!'

'Beware!' Rosalind warned her.

'Not at all!' Beatrice retorted, tightening her dressing-gown belt more firmly about her waist. 'If one is charming, why shouldn't one exploit it? It makes everything much easier for everyone!'

'Especially for Laurence Wilder!' Rosalind finished for her.

Her aunt's eyes widened thoughtfully. 'I can't think why you dislike him so heartily. He doesn't hold much brief for you either!'

'I know that!'

Beatrice's mouth tightened. 'It isn't working out, is it? Should I sell out, Ros?'

Rosalind thought of the birds she had seen at sunrise, and the clean, hot air at midday, and of the star-filled, velvet nights that haunted her with awakening desires she could not yet put a name to, and knew that she wanted to stay. She wanted to stay on any terms!

She smiled at her aunt. 'It will work out,' she said.

'I hope so,' Beatrice replied uncertainly. 'Because you're going to be very angry when I tell you why Laurence rang up!'

'For the same reason that Jennifer did, I suppose,' Rosalind said dryly. 'He's moving Mr. arap Moshe's cattle on to our land, and without our permission!'

Beatrice choked on a piece of bacon. 'Not without our permission,' she murmured.

'Bea, you didn't!'

'I think he would have done it anyway,' her aunt hurried on. 'Oh dear, I knew you'd be annoyed! But he's right, darling. John told me yesterday that we would be fighting a losing battle without him, and you have to admit that that's true! I told him he had my blessings to do as he thought fit, whether you agreed or not. I'm sorry, Ros, but you have been quite unreasonable lately about everything that man has suggested. And he's right! Even John says he's right! And in this case I prefer to believe John rather than you!'

'You know,' said Rosalind, trying hard not to show how hurt she felt by her aunt's attitude, 'that's exactly what Jennifer said. She said you'd be on his side, that you have been all along!'

'Do there have to be sides?' Beatrice complained.

'He drew up the battle lines the first moment he saw us!'

'Oh, that!' said Beatrice.

Rosalind's eyes met her aunt's. 'I never thought you'd desert me like this!' she wailed.

'I haven't deserted you,' Beatrice answered, 'I don't happen to think you're right, that's all.'

'Then tell me so, not Laurence Wilder!'

'But, love, I have told you, and told you! What else do you want me to do?'

'Oh, nothing!' Rosalind admitted wildly. 'It isn't your fault, it's his! And to think that I was going to tell him that I was ready to do things his way! Well, now I'm not! I'll fight him to the finish! What's more, I shall take great pleasure in telling him so just as soon as I can find him!'

'Oh, no, Rosalind!'

'If he wants it that way, that's the way he'll have it!' Rosalind went on. 'He's a great deal too highhanded !'

'Rosalind, how can you? That's exactly what he says about you.'

'About me?' The injustice of this attack was too much for Rosalind. 'How dare he? Really, this is too much!' She stood up sharply, her chair scraping on the floor. 'I'm going to have this out with him here and now!'

'Must you?' her aunt pleaded.

Rosalind scorned to answer. She jammed her hat on the back of her head and went out through the kitchen, pausing only to ask Yohana if he knew where Laurence was going to be that morning.

'The Bwana Wilder?' he hedged. 'The Bwana can be anywhere on the Co-operative.'

'Yes, but where?'

Yohana almost looked at her, his eyes swivelling round the edges of her face. 'If you go in that direction,' he pointed out at last, 'you will find him there.'

'But that's our land!' Rosalind protested.

Yohana looked more uncomfortable than ever. He nodded vaguely, turning on the tap over the sink to drown any further conversation. Rosalind made an impatient gesture and hurried out the back door. The mare, when she tried to urge her out of her stall, proved recalcitrant. She had been out once that morning and she thought it enough. Rosalind flung the blanket up on to her back and fitted the bridle over her head, fastening the buckles with difficulty as the mare tossed her head with increasing fury. Outside the sun was hot and the early morning breeze had faded in the face of the dancing heat that shimmered over the hard ground.

It was an awkward ride, with the mare showing her displeasure at every turn and Rosalind uncertain that she was going in the right direction. She seemed to have been going for a very long time when she saw in the distance the wooden remains of the old dip. It looked a primitive affair to her, no more than two converging wooden fences that led into the dip. The dip itself was made of concrete, like a thin swimming bath, into the deep end of which the cattle were launched, to find their feet further on at the shallow end, finally to stagger out into another field.

When she came nearer, Rosalind saw that another horse had been tied to the far end of the dip and that Laurence himself was examining the wooden fences, kicking at the posts with a booted foot.

'You're trespassing!' she told him when she came near enough.

He looked up and smiled. 'I'd thought this would be in better repair. Look at it!' His disgust disconcerted her and she looked where he was pointing. The wood was half eaten away by termites and what remained was powdery and rotten.

'I'll get around to fixing it in my own good time!' she said stiffly.

He paid her no attention, pulling up the posts as he walked along the fences. 'We haven't much time,' he said at last. 'We'll be dipping in a few days.'

'I'll dip when I'm good and ready to dip!'

He turned and looked at her. 'Did your aunt tell you that Rafael is herding his native cattle on to your land today?'

'Yes.'

The laughter crept into his eyes. 'Is that all you have to say?'

'No, Mr. Wilder, but I want to be sure I have your full attention before I begin—'

He grinned, 'This sounds good!'

'I doubt you'll think so!' she said grimly.

He pulled her mare's reins over her head and tied them up beside his own mount. Rosalind lifted one foot over the mare's neck, sitting sideways on the mare's twitching back as she surveyed him for a moment. He reached up and lifted her down beside him, his hard hands nipping her flesh at her waist.

'That's better! It gives you ideas when you look down on me!'

Rosalind fought for breath, hoping he wouldn't notice how his touch had upset her. 'I'm not going to accept Mr. arap Moshe's cattle on my land!' she declared, lifting her chin.

'Beatrice already has!'

'Beatrice is not running the farm!' Rosalind snapped back.

'And you are?' he drawled.

'I'm trying to! How can I when you're there interfering with everything I try to do? I wish you'd go away and leave us alone!'

Laurence smiled. 'Darling, I've told you before that it doesn't suit you to lead with your chin!'

She lowered her head hastily, not daring to look at him. 'Don't you take anything seriously?' she demanded.

'Sometimes.'

Then leave me alone!'

He leaned forward so that she could feel his breath against his cheek. 'Is that what you really want?' he asked her.

Rosalind nodded her head violently. 'I can manage by myself!'

'Liar!'

She could hear the mockery in his voice and raised her head, opening her mouth to argue with him, but at the same moment he ducked his and kissed her full on the lips.

'How dare you!' she cried, very close to tears.

'It's easy, when the invitation is made so clear!' he said.

'Oh, I hate you!' she stormed. 'What invitation? As if I would, when I don't even like you!'

He stood back, hands on hips, his eyes flashing laughter. 'I thought we'd established that as fact number one of the facts of life—'

'I hate you!' she repeated.

You'd like to,' he agreed. 'Every now and then!'

'All the time!'

'Then you'd better be careful and present a meek front, doing exactly what I say,' he drawled. 'That way, if you stop flirting with me, I may hear out your objections to my repairing your dip for you.'

'How - how big of you!'

He grinned. 'Isn't it? I expect it's easier for me to be gracious, knowing that I'm going to win in the end. Though I have heard it said that dignity in defeat is well worth cultivating,' he added dryly.

'I'm not ungracious!' she said in a hushed whisper.

'All right,' he said, 'prove it by helping me lift these posts!'

She set to with a will. Anything was better than arguing with Laurence. He was impossible! She felt quite hollow inside when she thought of his accusation that she had flirted with him. He had very odd ideas as to what flirtatious people were like! She had never flirted with anyone!

Then a new, niggling idea came to worry her. No matter what brave words she had said to Beatrice, she had never really expected to dissuade Laurence from bringing Rafael arap Moshe's native cattle on to her land, so why had she left her breakfast practically untouched and come rushing out to accost him? She couldn't like the acute feeling of agitation he induced in her, so why didn't she avoid him as she had first intended ?

She looked at him now, lifting the rotten wood with the greatest of ease, the back of his shirt stained with sweat, and her heart turned over.'

'Laurence, I can't get this one out!' she said, anxious to escape from her own thoughts.

He came over to where she was standing and lifted the post for her. It came out as easily as picking mushrooms. His eyebrows shot up ironically as he looked at her.

'Now what's the matter?' he asked her.

'Where's the timber coming from to replace these rotten ones?' She glared at him, aware that she was blushing. 'Laurence, please don't laugh at me! I don't know where to buy it, nor where to find someone to put it up for me.'

'I thought not,' he said.

'Laurence?'

'I'm not helping you!' he told her. 'Not unless you climb down from that impossible position you've got yourself into. Well, Rosalind?'

But she couldn't bring herself to go as far as that 'If you weren't so overbearing, high-handed, conceited, and thoroughly obnoxious—' she began. She stamped her foot hard on one of the rotten posts. It crumbled, revealing the termites within, scurrying backwards and forwards in their efforts to escape from the painful light. 'I won't ask you!' she gasped. 'I'll manage by myself if it kills me!' She raised her head to give point to her outburst, realized too late the danger she was in from his vengeance and took a hasty step backwards. But she was too late. He clipped her hands behind her back and laughed at her.

'Another Rosalind offered some very good advice to a girl like you,' he told her. 'Think about! But mistress, know yourself; down on your knees, and thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's love: For I must tell you friendly in your ear, Sell when you can; you are not for all markets: Cry the man mercy; love him; take his offer—'

'Never!' She swallowed, pleased with the finality of that. Then she spoilt it all by adding: 'And as for loving you - why, what would Jennifer have to say to that?'

Laurence frowned. 'Keep Jennifer Carne out of this! This has nothing to do with her, or Beatrice, and you know it!'

'I don't!' She threw back her head, struggling to escape his restraining hands. 'I don't!' she said again, less certainly.

She heard his warm laughter and then his lips came down on hers, smothering her resistance with an ease that delighted her even as she fought him. His hands let hers go, his palms resting against the flat of her back, holding her close against the hard length of his body.

'Is it so impossible?' he whispered against her hair.

Rosalind hid her face in his shoulder. 'I was going to ask you. I decided this morning, but when I got home you'd gone over my head and ordered the cattle on to our land. You could have asked me first!'

He ran a finger down the curve of her cheek. 'I could, but I have no time for buttering up young women with more pride than sense—'

She pulled away from him. 'You've already told me that I don't appeal to you! You don't have to labour the point!'

'My dear girl, you'll never make a farmer if you take everything personally! What are you trying to prove? That you have to like everyone you do a deal with?'

'Would you have made me ask for your help if I had been a man?' she retorted.

He gave her an amused look. 'Perhaps not,' he admitted. 'Are you asking for my help?'

She nodded, biting her lip. 'Yes,' she said flatly. 'But I'll thank you not to kiss me again!' she added, whipping up her rage to hide the humiliating fact that she wanted him to hold her tight against him and never let her go. 'That's no part of the agreement between us!'

His laughter brought the colour racing up her cheeks. 'It's the only way to treat you when you get out of hand,' he teased her. 'It's on your own head, Ros! Behave yourself and I won't be tempted! Though I think you'll find it hard to resist flirting with any handy man! Does John try to kiss you too?'

She gave him a freezing look. 'Certainly not!' she said.

He grinned. 'Don't you mean not yet?'

She walked away from him, tossing her head in the air. 'If you're not careful, I'll think you're jealous!' she taunted him.

'But you can't be sure, can you?' he drawled, and his laughter echoed in her ears as she took to her heels and ran to her mare, jumping neatly on to her back and racing her as fast as she would go for home and safety.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Rosalind became adept at avoiding Laurence. For four days she never saw him at all. If he came in the front door, she went out the back; if he left a message for her with Beatrice, she left the answer with her aunt too. It was the best way she could think of to achieve a more normal frame of mind, where Laurence Wilder became just another man, another human being that she could cope with.. Everybody suffered from obsessions from time to time, she told herself. It was her bad luck that Laurence had turned out to be an obsession with her. No, obsession was too strong a word. It was a mere attraction of opposites, and nothing to get excited about. One day she would wake up and wonder what all the fuss had been about! Whatever it was, it certainly wasn't love!

One of the drawbacks of this policy of never meeting was that she had been unable to ask him about labour. It was all very well to drive herself into the ground, borrowing Yohana from the kitchen if she found there was something she couldn't manage on her own, but she knew that such a state of affairs couldn't go on for ever. She was tired enough as it was.

Still, Laurence had been right about one thing. Rafael arap Moshe's native cattle were the toughest, stringiest, hump-backed beasts she had ever come across. They roamed across the tufted grass, eating whatever they could find, and attracting every kind of vermin. Rosalind wouldn't have believed it if she hadn't seen it for herself, but she had seen it when she had brought them in to dip them for the first time. Their resistance to ticks and other horrors was phenomenal. They were small, ornery, thin to the point of emaciation, but they were tough!

On the day of the second dip, Rosalind awoke with a feeling of marked reluctance for the task ahead of her. When she went downstairs, Beatrice looked at her with some concern.

'I suppose you want Yohana for the day?' she sighed.

'I suppose so,' Rosalind agreed.

'Can I help, dear?' Beatrice offered tentatively. She was not at her best on a horse.

Rosalind smiled at the thought. 'No, Yohana and I will manage. Only I can't keep taking Yohana away from the kitchen. He doesn't like it and it isn't fair to him. I shall have to ask Laurence about it, I suppose.'

Beatrice looked away quickly. Things - are better between you two?' she asked.

Rosalind coloured and was glad that her aunt wasn't looking at her. 'We're reconciled to the inevitable, I suppose,' she said.

'We?'

'Oh, all right, I'm reluctantly reconciled to the fact that we can't manage without him as circumstances are. Temporarily, at least, Laurence Wilder is the arbiter of our destiny. But it doesn't mean that I have to like it!'

'No, of course not,' Beatrice said quickly. 'John thinks you're doing the right thing, though. He says all your worries will be at an end now Laurence is in charge!'

Rosalind ground her teeth together. 'A fat lot of help he is!' She swallowed down the last of her coffee. 'Oh well, I suppose I'd better get started. I'll take the mare, Bea, she's much more lively than the other horses, but we ought to do something about exercising the others. Any volunteers?'

'Not Jennifer,' Beatrice said. 'She claims that she has always exercised the mare herself and she's not keen on anything else. Does that girl ever do any work, do you know? She comes here at all times of the day. Looking for Laurence, she calls it!'

'She's welcome to him!' Rosalind retorted.

Yohana came more willingly than usual. Rosalind had told him he was welcome to ride any of the horses in the stable, except for the little mare who was too small to carry him, and he had discovered that he liked the sensation of travelling on horseback, high up above the ground. He thought it gave him a standing amongst his friends he had not had before. Those who worked on the land, or even owned their own land, were apt to despise a mere houseboy.

Even so, it was Rosalind who did most of the work. She was not tall enough to stand by the dip, plunging the cattle's head under the disinfectant as they jumped clumsily into the bath, so it was she who had to round them up, pushing them along the wooden fences that led, wedge-shaped, towards the dip, while Yohana balanced himself above the dip, thrusting a long pole in the direction of any animal that had succeeded in escaping total immersion. It was hot work, taking a great deal of concentration, for the hump-backed creatures were as cunning as they were thin. They dodged here and there, even charging at the mare and Rosalind to escape if they thought they could get away with it. For every one that reluctantly took the plunge, there was another who would take advantage of the confusion to break free, and would have to be rounded up again.

When they were about half-way through the process, the disinfectant in the dip was already coated with dead ticks, lice and other vermin. Rosalind found it extraordinary to think that merely by running the herd on her land, they were clearing it of these pests which would destroy any other cattle which had a lesser built-in resistance to the diseases that come directly from such vermin.

Yohana stretched and hitched himself more firmly into position.

'There is someone coming, memsahib!' he yelled at her.

Rosalind paused in her attempt to bunch the remainder of the herd in the catchment area of the fencing, and looked up, wondering who would be driving so far from any road. It was, almost inevitably, Laurence Wilder. He was driving a Landrover which bounced easily across the rough ground towards them.

'How's it going?' he asked when he came within earshot.

'Fine!' Rosalind claimed.

He pulled the brim of his hat well down over his face, shading his eyes from the glare of the sun.

'I have another job for you,' he called out. 'I'll send someone over to finish up here for you.'

Rosalind sat very straight on the mare's back. 'I'd prefer to finish my own work,' she said.

He pushed his hat back suddenly, his eyes gleaming with anticipation. 'Are we going to have another argument about it?' he drawled.

'N-no, of course not! Only, if I leave here now, these wretched beasts will be all over the place again!'

Laurence smiled. She thought he looked disappointed. She was shocked by the knowledge that he actually enjoyed arguing with her. How could he?

'What is this other job?' she asked, her mouth dry.

He patted the canvas-covered seat beside him. 'Why don't you get down off that nag and I'll tell you about it. You both look as though you could do with a rest!'

'It's hot!' she complained.

'It doesn't stop you managing to look pretty enough to eat!' he grinned at her.

Rosalind stiffened. 'Last time you implied I was pretty indigestible,' she remarked, 'that I was not for all markets, but practically beyond praying for!'

'And that hurt?'

'Of course not! You're free to make all the inept quotations you care to! I didn't see then, and I don't see now, what a good man's love had to do with anything!'

'But you'd like to?'

Rosalind busied herself with the business of dismounting, thankful to be able to hide her face from Laurence's mocking gaze. She was more tired than she had thought, however, and her knees buckled under her as she hit the ground. It was only by clinging on to the irritated mare's mane that she stopped herself from falling. She uttered a little cry of fright before she could stop herself and rubbed her tired thighs that ached after the hours she had spent in the saddle.

Laurence made no effort to help her. He watched her through half-closed eyes as she walked towards him and climbed into the Landrover beside him, unable to hide the acute weariness that dragged at her muscles and depressed her spirits.

'Well, what's it all about?' she asked flatly.

'That's what I want to know. I thought we'd come to an agreement, you and I. What are you and Yohana doing, dipping these animals all by yourselves?'

Rosalind fiddled with her fingers, not looking at him. 'I haven't any other labour,' she muttered.

'I've been over to see you about that twice,' he pointed out. 'Didn't Beatrice tell you?'

Rosalind shook her head. 'Not about that.'

'Oh well, I suppose there were other things as well,' he excused her. 'But I sent Jennifer across yesterday to tell you not to dip these cattle today. I suppose you didn't get that message either?'

'No,' Rosalind said.

'But, for heaven's sake, why did you suppose she had come over?'

'I don't know. Bea said something about her wanting to exercise the mare.'

Laurence laughed caustically. 'A likely story! You've ridden her ragged as it is!'

Rosalind shrugged. She didn't attempt to defend herself. There was no defence against Laurence. 'Does it matter?' she said.

'My dear girl! What are you trying to prove? You were thin enough when you got here, now you look as though a breath of wind would send you flying!' He broke off, then went on, his voice very gentle, 'It would have spared you today in the hot sun.'

'I'm stronger than I look!' she answered. 'Besides, I like the heat! It's Yohana who doesn't care to be taken away from his kitchen. I could do with some help, I admit, but I like working on my own land.'

'Only the land belongs to Beatrice!'

'It's all in the family!'

He looked at her in silence for a long moment. She stirred restively under his regard, afraid that she was going to blush. She tucked her chin well in, just in case he got any ideas, and waited for him to speak.

'I've told Rafael arap Moshe to look after his own cattle,' he said. 'He's got some strong sons to help him and he's getting the grazing free.'

Rosalind said nothing, but she couldn't help hoping that the African had told Laurence what he could do with the grazing! There was hardly any nutritional value in the tough, tufted grass that his cattle were being expected to eat.

'And what am I supposed to do?'

'You look as though you could do with a good night's sleep! But Jennifer is snowed under at the Co-operative office, and if you don't give her a hand, I'll have to get in someone else. We're at the height of the tea-picking at the moment and there's a lot of bookwork attached. Every owner has to have his yield checked and entered. At the moment we've got ourselves in a fine muddle! The lorry driver is illiterate and he's supposed to give out the chits at the collection points!'

'Why doesn't Jennifer go round with him?' Rosalind asked. She couldn't help thinking that the other girl would have been better employed doing that than visiting Beatrice when she was least wanted.

'Jennifer doesn't care for travelling in lorries,' Laurence said dryly.

Jennifer, it seemed, was not subject to the coercion that he hadn't hesitated to use against her, Rosalind thought bleakly. But then one had to suppose that he was in love with Jennifer. One wooed rather than coerced those who were close to one's heart. Her lips trembled and she pretended to adjust her hat against the sun to give herself something to do.

'You should ask Beatrice,' she said aloud. 'She would enjoy something like that. She was saying that she wanted to see how tea grows and so on. She's much better with figures than I am too. I'm barely numerate!'

'Beatrice has enough to do putting that house in order,' he replied.

'She's almost finished. Haven't you seen the new covers?'

'I have,' he said. 'I'm only surprised that you've had time to notice them!'

A new thought struck her. 'You didn't talk this over with Beatrice, did you?' she accused him. 'I've been trying not to worry her about the farm just now—'

'No, I haven't said a word to Beatrice,' he reassured her. He smiled at her. 'I thought you'd seize this job with both hands! A lovely chance to crow over me for a change!'

Her eyes questioned his. 'Because Jennifer isn't very efficient?'

'That isn't quite what I meant,' he said dryly. 'I meant because I can't get along without you.'

'That'll be the day!'

'Don't underrate yourself, Rosalind. You pack quite a punch with that fair hair and those black-brown eyes.'

'Just the equipment I shall need to ride round in a lorry all day and hand out chits!' she pointed out.

'You have that impressive string of qualifications to cope with that!' he reminded her. 'Will you do it?'

She smiled, thinking how glad she would be of a change of job. She had tried hard to get things moving on the farm, but she knew that she was too slight and physically too small to be successful at putting up fences or dipping cattle.

'Have I any choice?' she countered.

'I could send Jennifer out in the lorry and put you in the office,' he said. 'It might be a good idea at that! Pounding a typewriter for a few days would keep that peachy complexion of yours out of the sun!'

'I'll take the lorry!' Rosalind retorted.

He grinned. 'You can start tomorrow. I'll run you down to the office now and Jennifer can explain to you how the system works.' He jumped out of the Landrover and went over to Yohana, explaining to the African that Rafael arap Moshe was going to finish the dipping and that he could take the horses back to the stables and return to his kitchen.

'Ndiyo, bwana,' Yohana said with approval.

Laurence said something else to him in his language and the African laughed, turning slow, amused eyes on to Rosalind. She wondered what the joke had been, but she was too proud to ask Laurence when he came back and climbed in beside her. She turned her face away from his probing eyes and watched the native cattle poking the dusty ground with stiff legs, suspicious at the sudden lack of activity all round them.

The Landrover shot over the rough ground. Rosalind, unprepared, grabbed the nearest thing she could find to hang on to and was chagrined to discover that she had taken a firm grip of Laurence's arm.

'I'm sorry,' she apologized, releasing him. 'I thought I was going to fall out!'

His eyes smiled at her, though his face was grave. 'Any time,' he said. 'Any time at all!'

She sat back on the canvas seat, feeling shattered. Now that the anguish and most of the excitement had died away, she was aware of a warmth, effervescent as champagne, that spread its way throughout her being. If sitting next to Laurence could have this effect on her, she would have to be very careful, she reflected. She no longer wanted to argue with him, or oppose him in any way. All she did want was that this warm glow should go on for ever.

They drew up outside the Co-operative office and Laurence jumped out, coming round the bonnet to help her out on her side. She smiled dreamily at him, meeting the mockery of his arched eyebrows.

'You see,' he said, 'how pleasant it is to submit gracefully?'

She put her hand in his, annoyed with herself. 'It's only because I'm tired and not yet used to the climate!' she said hastily.

'Little liar!' he retorted.

She stepped down on to the ground, drawing herself up to her full height, which against his extra inches, wasn't nearly as tall as she would have liked. 'Oh?' she said coldly.

'Perhaps you're not quite ready for the truth,' he went on. 'Is that it? Hurry up, Rosalind! You can lie and flirt all you please, but one day you'll have to admit that I'm the boss and that you like it that way!'

'I think you're a great deal too fond of having your own way!' she contradicted him.

But he only laughed at her. 'Come in to the office and Jennifer will show you round,' he commanded. He pushed open the door and stepped back, allowing her to go in before him. 'Hullo, Jennifer, I've brought the new recruit for you.'

Jennifer looked up from the papers she was working on, her face sulky. 'I told you I didn't need any help!' she said. 'There isn't room for more than one person to be stuck in this office. The heat in here in the afternoons is fantastic! I always go out then if I can.'

Rosalind felt rather at a loss. 'I shan't be crowding you in here,' she began to explain. 'Laurence says I have to go out with the lorry—'

Jennifer turned on her, furiously angry. 'But that's my job! You're not going to waltz in here and take all the plums, while I do all the real work!' She eyed Laurence, trying to smile. 'How could you, Laurie? Don't you like the way I run things for you? Men are never grateful for anything one does! I could easily do only the things you pay me for, you know!'

Laurence's expression never altered. 'Nevertheless,' he said quietly, 'the office work has been getting behind recently. With Rosalind going out with the lorry, you'll be able to catch up.' He glanced at his watch. 'I must be going. See that Rosalind has all the gen she'll need to start in the morning, Jennifer. 'Bye, girls! Be good!'

'As if we have the chance to be anything else!' Jennifer complained as soon as he had gone. 'How nice it must be to be one of the lords of this earth!' She stared at Rosalind across the desk. 'You look awful! What have you been doing with yourself?'

Rosalind shrugged. 'I was dipping cattle when Laurence came along. He didn't give me a chance to change or clean up.'

Jennifer's unblinking eyes never left her face. 'You're not getting ideas about Laurence, are you? He would do the same, you know, if you were as old as your aunt and even more of a frump. It isn't you at all!'

'I think he's doing it for Beatrice,' Rosalind said gently.

'Just so long as you realize it,' Jennifer grunted. 'Laurie is mine! It's just as well you're not really going to be in the office, because he's in and out of here all the time and having someone else here wouldn't suit us at all. I live for his visits, I don't mind telling you. His kisses are out of this world!'

Rosalind tried not to show her distaste at Jennifer's frankness. She turned the conversation back to the work that also presumably went on in the office.

'Oh, you won't have any difficulty with that,' Jennifer told her. 'Look, here are the chits, and these are the books. Have a look for yourself.'

It was, indeed, much easier than Rosalind had expected, and by the time she was ready to go home that evening, she felt quite at home with the way the tea was collected and checked. She was beginning to look forward to her new job.

There were scales at every checkpoint. Rosalind became quite accustomed to seeing the queues of Africans, most of them women, with their baskets of tea on their heads, waiting to have their harvest checked in and hurried away to the factory. She stood beside the scales, recording the weight and quality of each basketful against the name of the owner of the tea bushes. Most of the growers were Kipsigis, a languid, contented people, who found it hard to consider the needs of tomorrow, let alone the day after, so it was all the more admirable to see how well they pruned and plucked their tea bushes, a crop in which they had no particular interest for themselves.

The driver of the lorry had great ambitions that one day he would drive one of the long, elegant American cars that were in favour in the city. He thought the lorry a poor substitute and took delight in bashing his way up and down the steep roads, laughing when the radiator boiled or one of the tyres punctured.

'This lorry no good!' he would shout in triumph at the fresh disaster. 'No good at all!' He would heave the jack out of the back of the lorry, his torn, frayed shirt flapping in the wind, swearing all the while at the inadequacies of the tough, workmanlike vehicle in his charge.

Rosalind grew used to his ways. Her first doubts about him vanished when she realized that much as he professed to hate the lorry, he was seldom late at any of the checkpoints and he was concerned to see that the tea always arrived at the factory in prime condition, long before it had a chance to deteriorate.

Less tired, and thoroughly enjoying the work in hand, Rosalind found herself on better terms with Beatrice too. Her aunt seemed to have got over whatever it had been that had kept her in such low spirits. She had settled into her new house and professed a sudden interest in walking, saying that the surrounding country was ideal for this. She had even begun to take an interest in John Piper's wild flowers and her excitement knew no bounds when she found another of the orchid-like flowers he was hoping would be called after him.

Then, one day, when Rosalind had been going out with the lorry for about a week, Laurence came into the office. Jennifer danced across the floor and kissed him lightly on the cheek. Rosalind looked away, pretending not to have noticed. She was hotly embarrassed to have witnessed the casual embrace and she was ashamed of herself for feeling that way. She was not a child that she had never seen anyone kiss before.

Laurence grinned at her. 'How about you?' he invited her. 'Aren't you going to welcome me too?'

'No,' she said abruptly.

Jennifer had taken the opportunity to kiss him again, leaning against his shoulder with a proprietorial air. Laurence gave her a playful slap and escaped, putting a hard hand on Rosalind's shoulder.

'Let's have a look at you!' he said. He turned her round to face him, smiling at her obvious reluctance. 'Hmm, you look much better! And as stand-offish as ever!'

She felt safer with Jennifer there, so she looked him straight in the eyes, her expression belligerent. 'I'm late, so may I please pass?'

He looked significantly at her mouth and chin. 'Missed me?' he asked her.

'Not at all,' she said grandly.

'Liar! But I haven't time to dally with you now. There's a leopard helping itself to my antelope and—'

Rosalind went white. 'You're not going to shoot it!'

'No, dear, I'm going to try and capture it. Would you like to help?'

'I - I don't know,' she stammered.

'Laurie, stop teasing Rosalind! You're being unkind! Can't you see that she doesn't like talking to you? Tell me about your leopard. I've lived here long enough not to be frightened out of my life at the thought of killing one of them!'

Laurence slipped his arm more firmly about Rosalind's shoulders, ignoring her intense embarrassment at being used as a pawn in the stalking game between the other two.

'Really?' he drawled at Jennifer. 'It will mean spending the night up a tree, but I suppose you won't mind that.'

'It sounds like man's work to me!' Jennifer answered, laughing.

'I thought you might think so,' Laurence remarked. 'If you won't come, however, I'll take Rosalind. Some of the local Africans are beginning to panic. They don't like going into the fields unprotected with a leopard about.'

Rosalind shivered. 'I should think not!'

'Scared?' he rallied her.

She shook her head, carefully moving away from him. 'I'm late,' she repeated. 'The driver will be waiting for me.' She picked up her ledger and her chits and fled.

The news of the leopard's presence had spread fast. The lorry driver already knew - Rosalind could tell by the way he kept wiping his face and his unusual silence. She could tell too by the way he kept looking up into the trees as they passed underneath, as though he were searching for the leopard before it could take them by surprise.

The news had reached the pickets too. As they went from checkpoint to checkpoint, hardly anyone was there waiting for them, and those who were barely noticed them coming they were so busy with their own conversation. Rosalind could hear the whispered word 'chui' being thrown back and forth and always with fear.

'Tell them,' she said to the driver, 'that there's no need to be afraid. The leopard is interested in the antelope, not in them. Besides, Mr. Wilder is going to catch the leopard tonight!'

She sounded so confident that the driver became more cheerful and soon the whole group of Africans were laughing at their own fears.

'The leopard is not a gentleman like a lion,' the driver told Rosalind, shaking his head from side to side. 'The leopard is a cat with the instincts of a small cat. They are cruel, and kill for the pleasure of killing, not only for food. They will play with their kill too. They are very dangerous animals!'

But because there were very few pickers at the checkpoints, Rosalind found herself back at the office in record time. She took her ledger inside and dumped it down on the desk, anxious to make her escape from Jennifer's tongue as quickly as she could.

'I'm off home!' she said brightly. 'Beatrice is on her own, so I shall be glad to get away early!'

'Haven't you forgotten something?' Jennifer asked. Rosalind's spirits sank. She had become accustomed to Jennifer's silky politeness with which she covered the most personal remarks.

'What?' she said.

'Dear Laurence is taking you on a wild goose chase after that leopard!'

'But not now!' Rosalind exclaimed.

Jennifer's look was vindictive. 'Are you expecting him to come by your house for you? It shows how little you know about Laurence Wilder, my dear. He'll expect you to be waiting here for him, ready to go the instant he arrives. He won't come looking for you!'

'Then he'll have to do without me!' Rosalind retorted, sounding very much braver than she felt.

'He won't take you at all!' Jennifer told her. 'He only felt he had to offer to take you with him. He knows better than to ask me to sit in a tree all night, but he can't help getting at me. This time you were the handy tool in his hand to show me how displeased he is. I understand him, you see, and I wouldn't like you to get hurt, dear. He knows how to use that famous charm of his, but it doesn't mean a thing, believe me! I'm the only one he's ever been serious about - ask anyone!'

Rosalind had no intention of asking anyone. She flashed Jennifer a bright smile that was so far from what she was really feeling that she felt a fraud. Yet Jennifer had told her nothing that she didn't already know. She had known from the beginning that Laurence was in love with Jennifer, and it certainly wasn't news to her that Laurence liked his own way and would go to any lengths to get it. There was no excuse for the misery that gripped her. No excuse either for the disappointment she felt because he hadn't meant his invitation to help him to capture the leopard. What use did she think she would have been? It was a far cry from farming hops or apples in the Weald of Kent!

She drove home slowly, without any enthusiasm for spending the evening once again on her own with Beatrice. Then, as she turned into the drive and parked the car, she saw Laurence's shooting brake already there before her. She tore open the door of the car and raced into the house, her fair hair streaming out behind her.

'Steady on!' said Laurence. 'It's a leopard, not a fire! Beatrice has kindly offered to feed us before we go. All right with you?'

She gasped and nodded her head quickly, quite unable to find any words with which to tell him exactly how all right with her it was.

CHAPTER NINE

'But, darling—'

'I want to go, Bea. I know it's going to be uncomfortable and - and I shan't get much sleep, but I want to go! I can't get over it that he actually asked me! He didn't have to and I thought he'd think I'd just be in the way. You know how it is!'

Beatrice, astonished by this display of unwonted humility in her niece, merely smiled. 'I'm not stopping you, if you really want to go. Is Jennifer going?'

Rosalind shook her head. 'I - I don't think so.'

Beatrice paused significantly. 'I suppose she was asked?'

'She didn't want to go,' Rosalind answered. 'Cheer up, Bea, I won't do a thing to annoy Laurence—'

'I'm very glad to hear it! Let's hope we can say the same about him!'

Rosalind chuckled. 'Whatever I do, I don't suppose he'll actually feed me to the lions, or leopards, do you?'

'I wouldn't be so sure!' Beatrice retorted. 'You seem to have the ability to make each other hopping mad without even trying.'

Rosalind sobered, biting her lip. 'I don't think I have much effect on him either way,' she said. 'No more than a piece of grit fouling up the smooth working of his Cooperative. He'd forget about me altogether if I could only learn my proper place in his scheme of things.'

'And what's that?' Beatrice asked, intrigued.

'Oh, I don't know. Something very lowly.' Rosalind pulled a dark sweater over her head and concealed her fair hair under a black scarf of her aunt's. 'Do I look sufficiently concealable, do you think?'

Beatrice thought there was nothing particularly concealing about her niece's figure-hugging sweater and stretch-pants, but she murmured something to the effect that she thought Rosalind's camouflage would probably bluff the most cunning leopard and hurried down the stairs to tell Laurence that her niece was on her way.

'It was nice of you to ask Rosalind,' she smiled as she came level with him.

He gave her a droll look. 'I'm afraid it will mean no more than a thoroughly uncomfortable evening,' he grinned. 'Is she very excited?'

'Very!' Beatrice's eyes twinkled back at him for a brief moment. 'I gather that a precarious truce prevails between you at the moment?'

'At the moment,' he agreed. He turned his head to watch Rosalind descend the stairs towards them, the colour rising in her cheeks betraying her self-consciousness at finding herself the centre of attention. He held out his hand to her, the corner of his mouth twitching with amusement 'Come on, my lovely commando! Shouldn't you have blacked your face with boot polish to complete the picture?'

Rosalind stuck out her tongue at him, much put out. 'I thought the idea was that I shouldn't be seen!' she began heatedly.

His eyes ran over with appreciation. 'You're the kind that's very difficult to overlook,' he said, 'even with your hair hidden! Pity, that. I was looking forward to seeing it by moonlight, stealing the glory of the stars!'

'Supposing I told you that I did dye it after all,' Rosalind said.

'I shouldn't believe you!' he replied promptly.

'Wh - why not?'

'Because your eyes go black when you tell lies.'

'They don't! 'she denied.

'As you can't see them, how can you possibly tell? Ask Beatrice if you don't believe me! Not now! Now we have work to do. Are you quite ready? I've never known a woman yet who didn't have to go back for a handkerchief or something. Well?'

'I'm quite ready,' Rosalind said. She tried to look blasé and as though she went on leopard hunts every night of the week, but the warm excitement in her eyes betrayed her. She flung her arms about her aunt and kissed her with an exuberant gesture. 'Now I'm ready!' she said again.

It was cooler outside than she had expected and she shivered as she hurried into Laurence's car.

'Now what?' he asked her.

'Nothing,' she answered, a little sulky in the face of his impatience.

He smiled at her. 'There are several coats in the back of the car,' he told her. 'Once the sun goes down it can get quite cold at these heights. Didn't you think of that?'

'Yes, of course. I wouldn't have worn this fisherman's sweater otherwise!' Her voice sounded tart and admirably cool.

'That sweater never had a fisherman inside it!' he said dryly.

'Well, no,' she admitted. 'But I bought it from a ship's chandler. It's quite authentic!' she added, and wondered why he laughed.

They took the road going towards Kisii, which eventually went right to the shores of Lake Victoria. It was not a road Rosalind had travelled before and she was sorry that it was too dark to see the surrounding scenery. After Kisii, they dropped down to below five thousand feet and it became warmer by the minute.

'Do you know where the leopard is?' Rosalind asked Laurence eagerly.

'Not exactly.' He shifted in his seat. 'A leopard makes a larder up a tree, taking his kill up into the branches and storing it there until he needs it. We know where this one's larder is. It's just a question of waiting for him to come back for some more meat, then we'll trap him.'

'How?'

'Easily enough. We've got a whole lot of nets, and once the leopard comes along, we'll fire one end of the net over the tree and then ease him into a cage. The last thing I want to do is kill him!'

Rosalind was relieved to know he felt like that. 'What do I have to do?' she asked.

'Sit in a tree and give a warning when he comes. Sit tight,' he ordered. 'If you take it into your head to do anything else you might get hurt!'

'I'm not a complete idiot!'

'Just female and contrary!' he said.

She bit off an angry retort, remembering that for this evening at least she had no intention of antagonizing Laurence. 'Is all this land yours?' she asked instead. It seemed to her that they had been travelling for hours, with scarcely a light anywhere to show that there was any human habitation. She had seen the outline of some native huts and, once or twice, the flickering light of a hurricane lamp giving light to one of the small local shops that sold anything and everything to the villagers. But that had been a long time ago and now there was nothing but the endless darkness and the sounds of the night: the mad laughter of the hyena was the only one she could recognize, but they were savage and loud enough to make her glad of the car around her and the comforting presence of Laurence beside her.

'If you're going to decide to be frightened,' Laurence began sternly, 'tell me now and you can sit in the car until it's all over.'

'I'm never frightened!' Rosalind declared. It wasn't strictly true, but it was near enough for her to feel justified in glossing over those few occasions when her blood had run cold, or even the times when Laurence himself had caused her heart to miss a beat when she had done her best to defy him.

Laurence put a strong hand on hers. 'You'll be quite safe, you know,' he said. 'I won't let anything happen to you.'

She licked her lips. 'I'm looking forward to it. Only - only there aren't any tree-climbing snakes, are there?'

'Heaps!' he laughed at her. 'But I'll make a personal search of your tree before you climb into it. Will that suit?'

'Thank you,' she said with real gratitude. She wished she could have laughed too, to prove that she had been joking, but somehow she couldn't. If she hadn't thought about snakes she would have been quite all right, now her imagination ran riot with horrific images reminiscent of hundreds of Medusa's heads.

'You don't look as though you have much faith in your Hercules,' Laurence chided her.

She was quickly resentful that he had read her mind with such accuracy. 'I don't know much about snakes - and things,' she said.

His hand tightened on hers. 'I told you I'll look after you. Don't you believe me?'

'Yes, I do,' she said, with a frankness that surprised her as much as it did him. 'I'm just being silly. You shouldn't pay any attention!'

'My dear girl, if you can say that, you're one in a million. Just for that I'll allow you to have the rifle instead of the four-ten I was thinking of consigning to your tender mercies!'

She gave him an inquiring look. 'I don't think I want a gun.'

'A four-ten is hardly a gun, my dear. It wouldn't bring down anything much bigger than a pigeon! It certainly wouldn't do much to a leopard unless you were standing right beside it!'

'I see,' she murmured. 'Then the rifle is a vote of confidence?'

'More a devout prayer that you won't take it into your beautiful head to shoot me by mistake!'

'I shan't shoot anything!' she promised.

She became aware that the car had come to a stop and that Laurence still held her hand firmly in his. She tried to pull it away from him, but his hold was like a band of steel around her wrist.

'Now look, Rosalind, I want you to listen carefully. You don't play nice little games with a leopard. He'll look smaller than you expect and that may well disarm you. Also, he'll look very like your cat at home, only more beautiful and a bit bigger. He has the same liquid, flowing movements and the same way of purring when he's contented. So, whatever you do, don't attract his attention!'

'How am I to tell you that I've seen him?'

'Can you make a noise like an owl?'

She smiled, very pleased with herself. 'Oh yes!' She essayed a very creditable imitation of an owl's hoot and waited for him to congratulate her. His only reaction was a startled pressure on her wrist.

'I suppose it'll do,' he said.

She was hotly indignant. 'What's wrong with it?' she demanded.

'We don't have barn owls in Kenya.' He chuckled at her chagrined gasp. 'Perhaps the leopard won't know either,' he comforted her.

He dipped the headlights of the car several times in succession and got out, his body tense as he listened. In a few seconds a group of Africans had gathered round the car, apparently coming from nowhere. Between them they carried the folded net and the rockets that would carry it over the tree in response to an electric impulse. They worked as a team, without having to speak, tethering one side of the net firmly to the ground and priming the equipment that would capture the leopard.

At last, when everything was ready, Laurence came back to the car and nodded to Rosalind to get out.

'Is that the larder in that tree?' she asked him in an excited whisper, pointing up at some shadowy shapes against the sky.

'That's right.' He pointed at some bushes nearby, showing her how they had been flattened by something passing through them. 'That's the way he likes to approach, at a guess. If we put you up this tree here, you'll be able to watch out for him if he comes that way. Okay?'

'Yes!' she breathed.

She climbed the tree without difficulty, forgetting all about the possible snakes that had haunted her earlier. She settled herself as comfortably as she could and sat back to wait for the action to begin. Half an hour later, her lower limbs had gone to sleep and there was still no sign of the leopard. An hour after that, she changed her position and fell asleep where she sat, her head propped up on her arm.

'That's the way it goes, sweetheart,' Laurence's voice said in her ear.

Rosalind woke with a start and was immediately afraid of falling. The effort of keeping her perch in the tree made her tingle all over.

'Can you get down by yourself?' Laurence asked her.

'Of course I can!' she claimed indignantly. She moved a leg tentatively on to a lower branch and knew instinctively that it was not going to bear her weight. It was all a matter of will power, she told herself. If her legs felt as though they were going to drop off, they wouldn't in fact. They would hurt, and the pins and needles would turn her into an old woman before her time, but it was all the mind. She knew it was! She put her foot down on the branch more firmly, swung herself on to it, and fell headlong out of the tree. Fortunately Laurence was there to receive her, catching her neatly in his outstretched arms.

'I'm awfully sorry,' she stammered.

'I'm not!' His arms closed about her, hugging her tight. 'I like it when pretty girls fall like ripe fruit into my hands!'

'Oh, do you?' She tried to pull away from him and very nearly collapsed at his feet. 'Don't laugh, you beast! I shall never be the same again!'

'Well, naturally not, especially if you don't stand still and let the blood flow through your arms and legs.

Besides,' he added, 'think how much you enjoy having my arms round you!'

She tried to kick him in the shins, but the only result was a gasp of agony from herself as the pain from the movement shot through her leg.

'Serves you right!' he said with complete lack of sympathy. 'I told you to stand still!'

'Why should I?' she protested. 'Just so that you can make snide remarks, I suppose!'

'Not at all.' He pulled the black scarf off her head and her hair swung free on her shoulders. 'So that you can prove your meek and obedient disposition,' he mocked her.

'My disposition? Oh, how can you? When we didn't even catch the leopard!'

'Darling, I told you that's the way it goes. Perhaps we'll have better luck tonight.'

'Tonight?' she breathed. 'You mean we've got to do this all over again?'

'Why not? I thought it was rather fun.' He pulled her firmly against him and leaned forward, massaging her legs until they really hurt. The intimacy of the position disturbed her sadly and she made another attempt to pull free of him and attend to her own stiffness. 'You don't have to come if you don't want to,' he added.

'Try and keep me away!' she retorted.

He grinned at her and she found herself smiling back, still very aware of him and jumpy because she didn't know how to come to terms with the undoubted attraction he had for her.

'It's my guess this leopard is a female,' he told her. 'The male would be more considerate than to keep us waiting. Let's hope she'll be along tonight!'

Rosalind had time to sleep most of the day. The tea-pickers were more frightened than ever when they heard that the leopard was still free and making the round of the checkpoints was a waste of time. Rosalind felt obliged to offer her services to Jennifer in the office, but the other girl curtly refused to find her anything to do, saying that the office was her province and she preferred to keep it that way.

There was nothing to do after that but to go home. Rosalind was glad to have the opportunity to have a hot shower in an attempt to wash away the stiffness from her limbs and catch up on her sleep. Beatrice had gone out for one of her long walks. Rosalind watched her go from her bedroom window, amused at the short detour her aunt made round her garden, pulling out the odd weed here and there as she went. She thought she saw John standing in a clump of trees in the distance, but she decided she must have been mistaken when Beatrice walked straight past the copse without pausing and on into the distance.

Laurence came early, bringing Jennifer with him. Rosalind ran down the stairs to greet him, stopping short when she saw the other girl.

'Are you coming too?' she asked her.

Jennifer tossed her head and smiled, making no attempt to answer. Laurence smiled too. 'Jennifer wouldn't go anywhere near a live leopard!' he said.

'I might,' Jennifer contradicted. 'It would depend!'

'Then you are coming?' Rosalind repeated. 'Good, because if it's anything like last night, I don't want to go again.'

Laurence raised his eyebrows thoughtfully. 'Are you still stiff?' he asked.

'Still? I'll be stiff for the rest of time!'

'Rubbish! Don't fuss, Ros. Anyway, why are you dressed for the fray if you don't want to come?'

Rosalind looked down at her fisherman's sweater and pants with distaste. 'I didn't want to leave you in the lurch,' she said. 'But if Jennifer is going, you won't need me.' She refused to meet Laurence's probing eyes. Let him think her poor-spirited, she thought. It was better than having to watch him looking after Jennifer all night!

'My dear,' said Jennifer, 'if you think I'm going to spend the night up a tree to please anyone you couldn't be more mistaken. My part in the proceedings will be to organize the triumph afterwards!'

'Oh?' said Rosalind.

'I've been thinking that we ought to hold some kind of function for a while now. We haven't done anything much since you and Beatrice got here, have we? I mean, how are you to meet any of the locals if you don't socialize? Not that there are many left when one comes to think of it. Now, let's see—' Jennifer paused thoughtfully, counting off the local notables on her fingers. 'We'll have to hold it at Laurie's house, of course - it's the only one that's large enough. You don't mind, darling, do you?'

'Would it matter if I did?' Laurence returned.

'Not a scrap!' Jennifer put her arm through his and smiled at him. 'Don't be grumpy! You have to admit that I organize dances particularly well and hardly disturb the smooth running of your house at all!'

'You'd better not!' he told her. 'Are you ready, Rosalind?'

But Rosalind hung back, dismayed by Jennifer's easy treatment of someone who was so inaccessible to her._: Looking at him, and pretending not to, she knew with an inward flash that she was jealous of Jennifer. She would have given anything to have been the object of his loving kindness, instead of being no more than a pawn in the smooth working of the Co-operative.

'Rosalind?' he said again. He flicked his fingers in front of her face, laughing at her start of dismay. 'Ros, are you coming?'

'I -1 don't think so.'

His amusement died. 'Must you have an argument about every little thing?'

'But—' she began.

'But nothing!' he cut her off. He hooked his fingers round her arm and pulled her across the room. 'Good night, Beatrice, Jennifer!'

Rosalind was afraid of being pulled completely off her feet. She gave a yelp of protest to which he paid no attention at all. 'Laurence!' she pleaded. He never even paused in his long steps towards the car, opening the door into the passenger seat and almost throwing her inside. 'Laurence!' she said again, rubbing her arm.

'It's bad enough having Jennifer shilly-shallying all the time,' he growled. 'In you, I simply won't put up with it!'

'Nobody asked you to!' she reminded him.

He got in beside her, and she suddenly thought how weary he was looking. He probably hadn't had a moment in which to sleep during the day, nor had he slept, as she had, however uncomfortably, during the night before. She felt sorry that she had annoyed him at the beginning of another sleepless night.

'I want to come,' she said unsteadily, 'but I thought you'd rather have Jennifer with you.'

'There are times when I seriously wonder why women were given brains to think with!' he roared at her. 'Have you thought what it would be like being anywhere in the vicinity of Jennifer when the leopard came within sight?'

Rosalind bit her lip. 'If you were kinder to her—'

'Rosalind dear, shut up!'

She gave him a startled glance and was relieved to see a softened expression in his eyes. 'Ugh!' she exclaimed. 'You're so arrogant!'

'Am I? How uncomfortable for you, with your liberated notions, to find that you like me that way!'

'I? I never give you a second thought!'

'It's too dark to see, but I bet your eyes went black at that one!' he chuckled. 'Just as surely as you're blushing now!'

'I'm not!'

For answer he ran a finger down her hot cheeks, smiling faintly into the sunset. Rosalind sat as far away from him as she could get, bitterly aware of the discomfort of the window-handle digging into her ribs.

'Poor Rosalind,' he said. 'It's a shame to tease you. You get so hot and bothered. I suppose you know that retreat is the best invitation to pursuit?'

Rosalind tried to answer him as lightly. 'Nature abhorring a vacuum, and all that, I suppose!'

'Definitely,' he agreed.

'Well, I'm not at all hot and bothered, I'll have you know! I have only one interest and that is to see this leopard captured!'

He laughed, making her feel more uncomfortable than ever, but he stopped teasing her and turned his concentration fully on to his driving, ignoring her for the rest of the long drive to where the leopard had his larder.

That night, there was none of the glow of anticipation that had kept Rosalind going the night before. This time she couldn't really believe that the leopard would come and her perch in the tree was harder and more uncomfortable than ever. And yet hardly had they taken their places, peering out of their hiding places into the darkness, when they heard the frightened snort of some animal and the pounding hooves of others running away. Rosalind leaned forward eagerly, only just in time to see the bushes move as the great cat slipped along her chosen path towards the larder in the tree. Behind her came her cub, young and a little unsteady, tired from the long walk.

Such was Rosalind's excitement that she very nearly forgot to hoot to the others. She made a croaking noise in her throat, that brought two pairs of cat's eyes straight to her hiding place. She held her breath, tense with terror, and surprised at the strong smell that came from the animals which she knew she would never be able to mistake if it ever came her way again.

The silence became unbearable. Then slowly the leopard nudged her cub forward and leaped lightly into the lower branches of the tree where she had chosen to keep the remains of her kill. Balanced between two branches, she tore at a leg of the antelope she had edged against the trunk, licking and licking the joint with her rough, feline tongue.

Then suddenly, when Rosalind had despaired of it ever happening, the rockets were ignited and the net roared over the tree, imprisoning both the mother and her cub. The Africans whooped with joy, tethering the edges of the net more firmly to the ground, to make sure that the leopard had no chance of escape.

'We've done it!' yelled Rosalind, as excited as they.

'Ndiyo, memsahib! Chui msuri!' The chant began with a shout and rose and fell between them into a heart-throbbing rhythm.

Rosalind swung herself down out of her tree and went and stood beside Laurence. He put an arm about her shoulders and hugged her close. She could feel her heart thumping against him and was afraid that he would too. She tried to pull away, but his arm tightened against her.

'Rosalind,' he whispered. 'Fair Rosalind!'

And he kissed her as though he was never going to stop.

The leopards, mother and cub, took exception to the indignity of being caged. They roared defiance at all who came near them, pacing back and forth with a liquid energy that accentuated the muscular power that drove them along. Rosalind was fascinated by their powerful shoulders and long, lean lines, and stood in front of their cage, watching them, whenever she could.

The office had been empty all day, for Jennifer had decided that the celebrations she was planning at Laurence's house were more important than any work she might be doing. Rosalind had made her rounds of the checkpoints and had been pleased to see that all the pickers were back at work.

'I thought the Kipsigis were so happy-go-lucky,' she said to Jennifer, when she caught up with her late in the afternoon. 'These seem to work harder than we do!'

Jennifer shrugged her shoulders. 'The tea won't wait for anyone,' she explained. 'If they haven't grasped that little fact, Laurence would be only too willing to point it out to them! If he were human, he would have gone to bed for the day, but not our Laurence!'

Rosalind hesitated. 'Then should we be having the party tonight?' she inquired gently.

Jennifer shrugged again. 'If the Kipsigis can hold a dance that'll go on all night, why shouldn't we?'

Rosalind didn't dare protest further. She wasn't at all sure about her own motives in wanting to delay the dance. If she shut her eyes, she was back in Laurence's embrace and his lips were seeking hers, and she was shaking inside as much now as she had then. She needed time, a whole lot of time, before she saw Laurence again. She was very much afraid that she had fallen in love with him. Not the comfortable, cosy love of her imagination, but an all-consuming agony of need that she hadn't the remotest idea of how to cope with, especially not under Laurence's observant and arrogant gaze.

Neither she nor Beatrice had ever been to Laurence's house before. It was much larger than they had expected, built of rough-hewn grey stone, with a long, deep verandah that looked over the view of the whole valley below. The gardens were well established, a mass of flowering bushes and bright green lawns, made vivid by the last of the light.

Rosalind steeled herself to greet Laurence as she got out of the car, but there was no sign of him anywhere in the house. With a sensation of relief, she saw John Piper standing on the verandah and went over to him, anxious to tell him the details of the leopard's capture.

'You should have been there!' she told him.

'Like Jennifer, I prefer the celebrations afterwards,' he replied. 'I haven't acquired the taste for live adventure stories - they're always so uncomfortable!'

Rosalind giggled. 'I thought I'd never straighten out!' she agreed. 'But as soon as something happened, I felt wonderful! Not a single ache or pain left!'

'Then you ought to go inside and join in the dancing,' he smiled at her.

'I will, if you come with me!'

She sensed his reluctance to leave the verandah and wondered why. Someone was talking to Beatrice and had given her a drink that was too strong for her. Rosalind gave her a cheerful wave as she and John went past, but her aunt was too busy to return it. The room inside was large and, in its normal state, probably very comfortable. Now all the furniture had been pushed to one end, leaving a large space for dancing on the bare, polished wood floor. Rosalind looked about her with interest, trying to pretend that she would have been as interested in any place and not just because this room belonged to Laurence. With a slight sigh, she turned into John's arms and they began a quiet old-fashioned foxtrot in time to the music from the record.

'This is fun, isn't it?' she said aloud, hoping to convince herself.

'Jennifer puts on a good party,' he agreed.

He came to a sudden stop and Rosalind found herself face to face with Laurence. It was too late to turn and run, too late to do anything but stand like an idiot with a bright smile on her face.

'I prefer to finish my dance with John!' she told him.

He put his arm around her, his hand flat on the small of her back, and smiled. 'The heroine is expected to dance with the hero on these occasions,' he said mockingly. 'Besides, Beatrice wants to dance with John. You don't want him, so why upset her, my love? If you must flirt with someone, you'll have to content yourself with flirting with me!'

She stared at him. 'B-Beatrice - John—' she stammered.

He held her closer to him and began to dance. 'Exactly!' he said. 'Hadn't you noticed?'

She hadn't, but she ought to have done! But she hadn't had time to notice anything or anyone but Laurence. She felt winded and unaccountably guilty, and would have liked to have argued the point with Laurence just to show him, but with his arm about her she couldn't speak at all. She shut her eyes so that she wouldn't have to see Jennifer's face watching them. And the music caught at her heart and made her want to cry.

CHAPTER TEN

Rosalind told herself that somehow she had to hang on to the light touch, that that was the only way she would be able to keep her head in the face of this swamping, demanding physical need that Laurence's touch, coupled with the music, had aroused within her. She would know better than to dance with him again, however much her treacherous heart demanded that she should.

'You're very quiet,' he said.

'Am I?' She smiled with a confidence she was far from feeling. 'I was thinking about Beatrice and John. I couldn't bear it if anyone else made her unhappy.'

'It's difficult to achieve happiness unless one is willing to dare the inner core,' he answered. 'I think John is naturally gentle, though, don't you?'

'Perhaps,' she said.

'Only perhaps? My dear, compared with me his touch is feather-light!'

'That doesn't say much,' she said with feeling.

'Ah, but then my victim is tougher than Beatrice. She knows how to hand it out herself!'

Thinking of Jennifer, Rosalind was sure he was rights 'I think she understands you very well,' she agreed.

He looked down at her demure expression and laughed, holding her a little closer. 'And you claim you don't flirt?'

'No, I don't,' she said immediately. 'But I think, sometimes, that you do!'

'Any complaints?'

'It isn't for me to complain,' she retorted. 'But I should hate to be the love of your life. There would be too much standing on the sidelines for me!'

His mouth tightened. 'And what does that mean? I'm not aware that I've neglected you—

'We were talking about the love of your life!' she reminded him, pleased by the casual laugh that accompanied this remark. 'Don't you think you ought to dance with Jennifer? She did put this party on for you, you know.'

'Don't you think you ought to mind your own business!' he said in her ear. 'I can see I've been too kind with you, fair Rosalind. I like you better when you're a little less confident. The party spirit won't protect you once the party's over. Have you thought of that?'

'Why should I?' she retaliated. 'I'm not afraid!'

'Famous last words,' he drawled. 'But I'm too tired to accept any challenges tonight, no matter how attractive.'

Rosalind missed her step and jolted against him. Immediately she flushed scarlet, extricating herself with a nervous energy that would not have bluffed a blind man. 'I'm a bit ragged myself,' she said hastily. 'Two sleepless nights in a row take it out of one. I - I shan't stay long tonight. I need my beauty sleep tonight if I'm going to work in the morning!'

'Is that a hint that I should give you the day off?' he asked her.

She shook her head, veiling her eyes with her thick, black lashes. 'Someone has to do it. You said yourself the tea won't wait for anyone.'

'Ros, you're not letting Beatrice's interest in John get out of proportion, are you? It won't make any difference to her affection for you.'

'No, of course it won't. Beatrice deserves any happiness she can get. But it won't be quite the same, will it? I mean it shouldn't be, not if they marry and are really happy together. No one can share in that, can they?'

'No,' he admitted. 'But you have your own life in front of you.'

She nodded, almost eagerly. 'I think I shall go home,' she said, half hoping that he would contradict her. 'It was Beatrice's idea to crane here and I— She broke off as he said nothing at all. 'I think I shall be happier in England,' she went on, hoping that the desperate misery that afflicted her would pass quickly and leave her in peace.

'Hmm,' he said, 'you'd certainly never run the farm on your own. The days of the amateur fanner in Kenya have come and gone.' He grinned at her barely restrained hostility. 'Now, don't trot out all your impressive qualifications again, my dear. Out here, they're not worth the paper they're written on!'

'I could learn!'

'Not from me!'

She winced as though he had hit her physically. Then she thought of Jennifer again; Jennifer as she would be when she was not only hostess of a party at Laurence's house, but there by right as his wife. No, she wouldn't like it if her husband went on interesting himself in Rosalind's affairs, and Rosalind was too honest with herself to blame her. Jennifer would know by instinct that Rosalind would never see Laurence other than as the man who had captured her heart, her imagination, and all her love. It could never lead to anything, because it was only on her side, but she would never see him as anything else but the perfect mate of her imagining.

'I haven't any choice, have I ?' she said.

'Not about the farm.'

'There isn't anything else!'

The music came to an end, echoing the empty feeling that had invaded Rosalind's whole being.

'This isn't the time, Rosalind,' he said wearily. 'I told you, I'm too tired for anything right now!'

She looked up, concerned. 'Can't you go to bed, Laurence?'

'With this din going on? Some hopes!' he exclaimed.

He left her with a slight bow and went off to dance with Jennifer. Rosalind tried not to mind the thought of his arm, which had so recently held her, encircling the other girl. Jealousy, she thought, was such a petty emotion, but that was easier to say than to root it out of her heart. She went out on to the verandah and very nearly bumped into John and Beatrice, who had eyes only for each other, and who didn't even notice her. She felt more completely lonely than she had felt since her parents had been killed - and then there had been Beatrice. Now there was no one, and, with Laurence marrying Jennifer, there never would be.

The dancing went on interminably. Rosalind danced with a great many people, trying to sort them out in her mind and failing abysmally because she couldn't bring herself to concentrate. As soon as she could, she found Beatrice, alone for a minute, and told her she was going home.

'It's nearly midnight now,' she said, 'and I have to work tomorrow.'

Beatrice gave her a worried look. 'Is that your only reason?' she asked.

'No,' Rosalind admitted.

'Oh dear,' said Beatrice.

Rosalind hugged her. 'Nor is it anything to do with you and John!' she declared, smiling at her aunt. 'That's the nicest thing that's happened for ages!'

'Do you think so? You don't think John is getting a bad bargain?'

'Darling, I think he's the luckiest man in the world! You haven't any doubts, have you?'

'Not really,' Beatrice said in muffled tones. 'Only, I'm sure he thinks my marriage to Terry was odd and I haven't plucked up the courage to tell him about it yet. I never have told anyone!'

'He'll understand,' Rosalind assured her. 'He sees a lot and says very little. I like him for that.'

'Terry never let me into his room,' Beatrice burst out. 'He - he didn't like women. Certainly not me! Do you think John will really like getting such a bad bargain?'

'Beatrice, you fraud!' Rosalind accused her. 'He'll kick up his heels with joy! It must always be a worry when one marries a widow to know if one comes first, or if she secretly looks back to her previous happiness. John can be perfectly sure that he reigns supreme! Not that he can have had many doubts, seeing that he knew Uncle Terence and is no fool! Darling muggins, if that's the worst of your worries, you're a lucky woman!'

Beatrice grinned, looking as though a weight had just dropped from her. 'Let's hope you're right! I'm lucky in my niece, at all events.'

'I think Rosalind is fortunate to have such an aunt,' Laurence said dryly above them. 'I thought you'd decided to go home to bed, young woman?'

Beatrice looked from one to the other of them, so patently upset at the thought that Laurence might have overheard their conversation that Rosalind hugged her again. Laurence smiled at them both. 'I didn't, you know,' he said. 'I arrived just in time for the mutual congratulations at the end.'

'Oh,' said Beatrice, much embarrassed. 'We weren't — I mean, it wouldn't have mattered!'

Laurence touched her on the shoulder, giving her a very kindly look. 'John is looking for you,' he told her. 'I think he's working up his courage to ask you something, judging by the look of intense vagueness on his face. He's just been dancing with Jennifer, humping her around like a sack of potatoes. I think you'd better put him out of his misery before he demoralizes us all. Jennifer has an ill-used air that bodes ill for the next poor fellow who steps on her toes!'

Beatrice laughed. She stood up eagerly and went in search of her swain with a light step.

'That was kind of you,' Rosalind said, her eyes following her aunt as she went towards John like a homing pigeon.

'I gather she's finally come to terms with her previous marriage?'

Rosalind nodded, wondering how he knew. 'I always hated Uncle Terence!' she muttered venomously.

'Did she?'

'Beatrice? Beatrice wouldn't hate her declared mortal enemy! She hasn't got it in her to hate anybody!'

'But you have?'

Rosalind made a futile gesture. 'If someone close to me is threatened, I think I could hate in earnest. Mostly, I use the phrase as loosely as everyone else does.'

He looked amused. 'That fits in with your strictly female view of life!' he agreed. 'The rights and wrongs don't matter much to you, do they?'

'I think they do!' she denied. But she saw immediately that he was right With her it was people every time. His sardonic expression drove the point home. 'In this case they all go together anyway,' she claimed.

'Just as well. Come on, love, I'll take you home.'

'But Jennifer—'

'I suppose you'd better say good night to her, but hurry up!'

Rosalind felt that she had to wait for the dance to end, though, before she could interrupt the other girl. 'It was a beautiful dance,' she said, 'but I can't stay awake any longer. You'll have to forgive me and let me go home.'

'Why should I mind?' Jennifer returned. She saw Laurence standing behind Rosalind's shoulder and frowned. 'But I shall object strongly if Laurie goes with you! I only put this do on for him, and what will people think if he takes the first opportunity to disappear?'

'That someone has to drive Rosalind home as Beatrice isn't ready to go yet,' Laurence suggested.

Jennifer looked really put out. 'You promised me the last dance!' she pouted up at him.

'So I did.' He bent towards her, his smile intimate. 'Can you keep the dance going until I get back?'

Mollified, Jennifer giggled. 'I'll keep it going all night if necessary,' she said. 'But hurry back, Laurie. I hate to have my partner disappear in the middle of a dance. I never have learned to be on my own.'

'Laurence ought to get to bed too,' Rosalind put in. She thought he looked grey with fatigue and was surprised that the other girl should care so little.

'Laurie is never too tired, are you?' Jennifer looked at him and batted her eyelashes meaningly.

He grinned at her, saying nothing. Rosalind bit her lip and wished she could disappear alone. Indeed she would have done, if he had not held her so tightly by her wrist. If he wanted to dance with Jennifer, she was the last person to stand in his way.

'I - I can walk home,' she murmured.

'You'll do nothing of the kind!' he retorted.

It didn't sound a particularly loverlike sentiment to Rosalind. She remembered what she had said earlier about her having to stand on the sidelines too often and wondered if Laurence did too. The snap of amusement in his eyes told her that he did. She shook her head at him, but his only response was to hold her tighter in case she should escape him. Rosalind cast him a speaking look as he hurried her out to his car. His expression of bland innocence only succeeded in annoying her.

'You see?' she began. 'Poor Jennifer!'

'You were talking about the love of my life,' he drawled. He was silent for a long minute, watching her face in the moonlight. 'I don't think Jennifer would return the compliment and worry about your feelings if the positions were reversed,' he remarked.

Rosalind lifted her chin. 'What positions?' she demanded.

He stroked her chin with a thoughtful finger. 'I'm taking you home, my girl, so don't tempt me to dally with you in the moonlight—'

'You always blame me!' she complained.

'You keep on leading with your chin,' he answered. 'The remedy is in your own hands. A proper submissive manner—'

'Don't!' she pleaded, unable to fence with him any more just then.

'No, you're right, this isn't the time or the place. Shall I drive you straight home, or shall we go by way of the Kipsigi dance and take a look at our leopards?'

Rosalind stared ahead of her. 'Even Jennifer won't wait for ever,' she said on a sigh.

'She'll wait! Well, which is it to be?'

She turned towards him impulsively. 'You're tired, Laurence. You don't have to take me anywhere. I shall be quite content to go straight home, you know that.'

'But you'd love to see the Kipsigi dance all the same?'

She nodded, a little ashamed of her eagerness. 'Yes, please.'

'Then you shall! I can sleep all day tomorrow, it's you who has to work!'

She longed to put out a hand and touch him, or to have him touch her as he had when he had stroked her jaw. Any physical contact with him would have eased the terrible longing that afflicted her. 'I slept both yesterday and a little today,' she confessed. 'The tea-pickers were too frightened to go out in the fields, so there was nothing for me to do. Jennifer doesn't like me to interfere with the office work.'

'Then to the Kipsigi dance we shall go!'

He flicked her nose with a careless hand and started up the engine. It was just as well, she thought, that he couldn't know how her heart hammered within her at the thought of having a little more time alone with him. After tonight, she decided, it would have to stop. She would have to make sure that she didn't see him alone again, somehow she would find the strength to do that, but she didn't think she was harming anyone by spending this short time in his company.

Laurence stopped the car some way from the village. 'Come On, lazybones, we walk from here. You can't get to know Africa encapsuled in a motor vehicle; you have to get out and walk on the earth, smell the tang of growing things, and sharpen your wits against nature in the raw. This is the only place I know where the land is still as God made it and not tamed by man.'

Rosalind smiled uncertainly. 'I shall miss it,' she said.

'Even the snakes?' he grinned.

'There aren't any between here and the village, are there?' she asked, shivering despite herself.

He laughed. 'Stamp your feet as you go along and you'll give them warning of your coming,' he suggested. 'They feel the vibrations and slither off rather than face you. Did you know that snakes are deaf?'

'I don't care what they are!' she wailed. 'They look slimy!'

'But they're not. They're dry, and usually warm from sleeping in the sun. One day I'll make you touch one and you'll never be frightened of them again. It's all in your imagination—'

'How can you?' she groaned. 'You're deliberately being cruel!'

'Perhaps,' he admitted. 'I like it when you go all feminine and clutch at my sleeve for support!'

She looked at him in the faint moonlight, a dawning anger in her eyes. 'I think I'd better go straight home after all,' she said.

He stood there, straight and silent, the arrogant set of his head outlined against the sky. 'It isn't like you to be nervous,' he said then.

'Snakes disturb me. Especially two-legged ones!'

Laurence laughed, though he didn't sound particularly amused. 'That was a very tart remark. Do you mean you're afraid of me?'

'How you'd love it if I said I was!'

'No,' he contradicted her. 'Oddly enough, I wouldn't like it at all. But I don't believe it. I think you can't resist a good old-fashioned challenge after all, even if we are both so tired that we can hardly stand up, let alone think straight! I haven't got the stamina to give you the good beating you deserve, so we'd better get going. Think you can make it to the village?'

'Well, really!' said Rosalind.

'No arguments?'

'None that I can think of at the moment,' she answered, feeling rather shaken. So much for her theory that there was no harm in spending a little while alone with him. She had tried to provoke him, but why? Honesty compelled her to admit that it was because she couldn't be with him, even for a short while, without asking more. So that was it! The crumbs weren't, and never would be, enough for her.

She walked along beside him, lost in her own miserable thoughts. His stride was longer than hers, and she had to run every few steps to keep up with him. It was just like him to expect her to accommodate herself to him when he must know that her legs were much shorter, but he wouldn't think of that! If she couldn't keep up, he would probably send her back to the car.

They arrived at the edge of the village with her out of breath and in a prickly state of temper. The flickering light from the numerous fires lit his face and showed clearly the gleam of satisfaction in his eyes.

'I thought that would take some of the steam out of you!' he said mockingly. 'Come and see the leopards!'

She forgot her anger as she looked at the sleeping cats, as beautiful in repose as they were in motion. Laurence had been quite right in thinking that they were smaller than she had expected, but they were also more perfect. She had never looked closely at a leopard before and she was entranced by their spots, like five-fingered prints, that were distinctive and elegant.

'What will happen to them now?' she asked.

'Duncan Njugi of the Ministry of Wildlife and Tourism is coming up here tomorrow to take a look at my pilot scheme for ranching game. I expect he'll arrange to have the leopards transported to Tsavo National Park. I have some friends there who live just beside the new Chui Safari Lodge. They'll be glad of a few leopards to go with the name!'

'Oh yes, chui means leopard, doesn't it?'

He shook his head at her. 'Your Swahili ought to be better than that by now!' he reproved her.

She didn't answer. She stood gripping the corner of the cage with one hand, her knees feeling as though they were about to give way beneath her. She wouldn't look at him! She wouldn't! If she turned her head a fraction of an inch, she would fling herself into his arms.

'Will Duncan Njugi give you a good report?' she asked, swallowing hard to keep the tears out of her voice.

'I think so. I'm going to have to send someone back to Nairobi with him to give a more complete report to the Ministry. But they're interested, there's no doubt about that!'

Rosalind blinked. 'May I go to Nairobi?'

His hand came down on top of hers. 'I think not,' he said dryly.

She did turn her head then and look at him. 'I want to go!' she declared. 'You don't understand! I can't stay on at the farm and I can't go back to England until Beatrice is safely married. I shall get another job, for a while, and I'd like to see Nairobi properly. It's such a pretty place.'

'No. Your job here isn't finished. Jennifer can go.'

Rosalind wrenched her hand from under his. 'How can you? She has a real job here, mine had to be - to be invented for me! Besides, I'd like a change!'

His mouth tightened angrily. 'I'm not going to argue about it - particularly not 'now! You're not a citizen, so you won't get a job in Nairobi, unless you marry someone for it, and you don't know enough about the project to answer questions on it, Jennifer ought to be able to by now!'

'Laurence--'

'That's enough, Rosalind. Jennifer's work is finished, yours isn't, and here you'll stay until it is. Understand?'

She nodded, wishing she hadn't taken issue with him in the first place. She couldn't agree that Jennifer's job was finished, judging by the chaotic state of the Co-operative office, but then she should have known that Jennifer was a special case, not subject to the harsh standards by which he judged everyone else.

Her attention wandered away from the caged leopards to the rest of the village. She knew what the surrounding land was like, neatly terraced and hedged, and dotted with bomas where the cattle were put at night for safety, and patches of tea. The village itself was a huddle of houses, most of them made of mud and wattle with thatched roofs, but here and there a corrugated iron roof caught the light from the fires proclaiming the progressive thinking of its owner.

The whole of the centre of the compound was full of people, some of them lounging in the shadows, but most of them joining in the long lines of the dance, rising and falling with the beat of the drums.

In the old days, Laurence told Rosalind, the Kipsigis had had no chiefs. They had made do with local councils and witch doctors, neither of which they had taken very seriously, it being contrary to their easy-going nature to work themselves up about anything very much. But fifty years of British rule had incorporated them into the prevailing system and chiefs had been appointed. They were not hereditary, but as certain riches went with the job, their sons were apt to be better educated and therefore landed most of the plum jobs. Now, their troubles were somewhat different and were hereditary, for what had been ample land for the grandfathers, adequate for their fathers and uncles, was less and less likely to provide the whole of the next generation with an adequate living. Like other young men from all over the countryside, they were leaving their traditional homes and going to the cities in search of work which, despite all efforts from the Government, was never sufficient to employ them all.

'We're in the transitional stage now,' Laurence went on. 'When there's ample land, most people prefer to ranch cattle. It's only when the land situation gets tighter that they come to terms with more intensive methods. It has to happen in the end.'

'Even here?' Rosalind asked dreamily. She couldn't imagine this endless, spacious back of beyond, as he had called it, ever being brought under the plough and changed from its primeval, raw state.

'It's beginning already,' he answered.

Several of the men nodded a greeting to Laurence, inviting him to sit on a stool beside them and share in their beer drinking. At a loss, Rosalind found herself sitting at his feet, her back against his knees, with the whole panorama of the dance before her. She wished that Beatrice had been with her to share the moment, but then her aunt would have worried about ruining her dress in the dust and probably wouldn't have liked the strong beat of the repetitive rhythms that went round and round and never seemed to come to an end.

The people were beautiful, Rosalind thought. She had grown used to seeing them dressed in shirts and shorts, or dresses not very unlike those she wore herself, but tonight they were dressed in traditional garb and were strange and exotic. The women wore elaborate jewellery, made from tiny beads sewn together and long lengths of wire, some of it copper, some of it probably stolen from some of her fallen fences. The general effect was brash and primitive. Nor were the men any less ornate as they swayed and jumped opposite the long line of women, their expressions trancelike as they allowed the beat of the music to wash over them. Sometimes the children joined in, clutching the hand of the nearest adult, and running away to hide their faces in their mothers' ample and always available breasts.

Rosalind put her head back against Laurence's knee, revelling in the luxury of having a perfectly valid excuse for relaxing against him. Perhaps a man's shins were not the most responsive part of him, but the contact made her heart overflow with love for him and she felt soft and unusually mellow inside. The conversation went on literally over her head, punctuated by the long grunts of approval that are part of any African's speech. That, too, added to her sense of hopeless passion as she listened to. the cadences of Laurence's deep voice, understanding not a word that he was saying. Then to make a point he banged his hand down on the top of her head. 'Sorry, love!' he said without pausing in the flow of his argument. His fingers curled round a lock of her hair and he played with it thoughtfully as he listened to the reply from another man. Rosalind held her breath, afraid that if she moved she would recall herself to his conscious mind, and he would bring this moment to an end.

'Asleep?' his voice asked her.

She shook her head drowsily. 'Not yet.' He pulled her to her feet, putting his arm about her as though it belonged there. 'Must we go?' she demurred. 'I'd like to stay all night - or at least until the dancing stops.'

'That would be all night!'

She peeped up at him through her eyelashes. 'Please, Laurence, let's stay a little longer.'

'Not a moment longer! Have you forgotten that Jennifer is waiting for me to dance with her?'

She had. She had completely forgotten. She pulled away from the circle of his arm and began to walk back to the car, her face set. He let her go, shaking hands with the men he had been talking to, laughing and joking with them just as though he hadn't withered her beautiful moment as finally as if it had never been.

Jennifer! Rosalind forced herself to recall the other girl's features to her mind's eye, determined to remind herself how pretty she was and how certain she was that Laurence belonged to her. It was she, Rosalind Janes, who was the intruder. Jennifer had been in possession long before she had come to Kenya. Her position was impregnable and she knew it. She could afford to wait complacently for Laurence, no matter what he did or where he went, because she was the love of his life.

'Your start wasn't long enough if you wanted to race me to the car,' Laurence teased her, catching up with her easily as she reached the shadows that lay beyond the firelight. 'Or are you running away?' he added.

'What would I be running away from?' she countered, hoping that she didn't sound as miserable as she felt.

'Fate, perhaps?' he mocked. 'You're not quite ready to cry for mercy, are you? Last, lingering doubts about losing your independence?'

She gave him a shattered look, glad of the darkness that surrounded them. 'I wasn't running away from anything! I was thinking of Jennifer waiting for you, and that you are the most obnoxious man of my acquaintance. Well, let me tell you that I wouldn't wait five minutes for you to dance with me! I'd have something - better to do!'

He put a cool hand on the small of her back and propelled her forward, his teeth shining white in the moonlight as he smiled imperturbably at the path ahead.

'But then you don't have to wait for me, do you?' he said.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Rosalind hardly slept a wink that night. Her mind was full of the dark, leaping figures in the firelight and the agony of loving Laurence. What had he quoted to her so long ago, saying that another Rosalind had once said it: 'But, mistress, know yourself: down on your knees, And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's love: For I must tell you friendly in your ear, Sell when you can; you are not for all markets: Cry the man mercy; love him; take his offer.' It was hard not to dwell on the way he had kissed her, effortlessly making her abandon her independence as far as the farm was concerned. Of course he had been talking about the farm! But he had brought her to her knees all the same, and a good man's love, if it were his love, would be worth any hardship to her for the rest of her life.

When she dressed and went down to breakfast she felt calmer, but the cost was written clear on her face. Beatrice looked at her shadowed eyes and white face, and wondered what her niece had been up to.

'Any particular plans for today?' she asked her.

'I'm working,' Rosalind answered.

Beatrice made a surprised sound. 'After last night? I'm sure Laurence would understand—'

'Well, he wouldn't! He actually told me last night that Jennifer had her work well up to schedule, but that mine wasn't nearly finished!'

'Really? I can't think how Jennifer manages, can you? She's never in that office to do any work!'

'I suppose it's different if you're the girl he's going to marry!' Rosalind said wearily. 'Still, I'm not going to have anyone think that I'm not pulling my weight.' She pushed back her chair, though she had scarcely touched her breakfast. 'I think I'll go for a quick ride before I start.'

'All right, dear.' Beatrice hesitated. 'Is Laurence paying you for your work at the Co-operative?'

Rosalind froze. 'No,' she gasped. 'Do you know, I hadn't even thought about that! I must be mad!'

'I thought perhaps you'd come to some arrangement in exchange for all he's doing on the farm?'

'There was no arrangement! He is the most odious, the most obnoxious, the most conceited, the horridest snake in the grass it's ever been my misfortune to meet!'

'Oh dear,' said Beatrice faintly.

Her niece's eye kindled. 'Is that all you can say?' she demanded.

'I had hoped you'd become better friends. He brought you home last night, didn't he? And you can't pretend you came straight home, because Jennifer was waiting for him to get back and I thought she was going to explode with rage and mortification. She doesn't take' kindly to being relegated to the rear of the stage, does she?'

'I told you,' Rosalind said, taking a perverse joy in repeating the fact, 'she's going to marry him.'

'I do hope not,' Beatrice said, sounding anxious. 'I like Laurence, whatever you think of him, and Jennifer would bore him rigid in no time at all!'

Rosalind felt a; warm glow at the thought which she ruthlessly repressed. 'You don't have to worry about him!' she said aloud, tilting her chin. 'If he doesn't like her as she is, he'll make her over into something he does like. She'll probably enjoy it!'

Beatrice stared at her with renewed interest. 'What did he say to you last night?' she asked.

Rosalind blushed. 'Nothing. He sat and talked to the old men at the Kipsigi village! He sat on a stool, of course, while I had to sit on the ground at his feet—'

Beatrice laughed. She had not laughed like that, bubbling over with the sheer joy of living, since before she had met and married Terence Hollings. Rosalind's fierce expression melted into tenderness. 'I gather your evening was completely satisfactory?' she quizzed her aunt with gentle irony.

'I thought so,' Beatrice answered.

Rosalind chuckled to herself as she went out to the stables and saddled the mare. She was surprised to find a saddle slung over the door of an empty stall and wondered where it had come from, but as it was there she decided she might as well make use of it and lifted it neatly on to the mare's back, tightening the buckles as she talked to the nervous mare who danced back and forth, shying away from every movement that Rosalind made.

'What's the matter with you?' Rosalind whispered to her. 'You don't usually get all het up like that!'

But the mare remained reluctant, pulling back into her stall and cavorting round the stables, anything rather than set a foot outside the door. Rosalind saw Yohana walking past the open door and called out to him. The African came at once, putting a firm hand on the bridle and gently led her out.

'The memsahib Jennifer has been riding her,' he told Rosalind.

'When?'

Yohana shook his head. 'She comes,' he said enigmatically. 'The saddle belongs to her.'

He handed Rosalind up on to the mare's back. She took the reins more firmly into her hands. 'Thank you,' she said. 'However, the mare does not belong to Miss Carne. I think I'll have a word with her. If she wants a mount, she can take one of the other horses - or borrow one of Mr. Wilder's!'

'Ndiyo, memsahib,' Yohana agreed, his face impassive.

Once outside the mare began to pick up her spirits. Rosalind was uneasily aware that she had been neglecting her recently, but once the mare had assured herself that it was not Jennifer on her back, she set off at a brisk pace and Rosalind could have sworn that she was enjoying herself, racing over the dew-laden grass of the early morning.

A great deal of work had been done on the farm in a very short time, Rosalind noticed. The boundary fences were all repaired and, although the internal ones still drooped drunkenly from rotten posts, hedges had been planted alongside in the more important places, and would soon prove an effective barrier to cattle trying to move from one field to another. The animals too had increased in number. Rafael arap Moshe's native herd was still roaming over the far fields, but there on the home fields were some of the best-looking steers Rosalind had seen locally. They had beautiful straight backs and plenty of chest room. She wondered where they had come from.

Beatrice had absolutely no idea. 'I thought Laurence had carte blanche to do as he likes,' she said.

'He has,' Rosalind agreed. 'But I do think we might be consulted about anything new. These steers must have cost a pretty penny!'

Beatrice gave her a comic look. 'Perhaps you're better paid than we thought,' she remarked. 'Darling, if you don't go, you'll be late!'

'And that will never do!' Rosalind retorted with deliberate sarcasm. But she went, giving her aunt a light kiss and a teasing inquiry as to when she was going to see John.

'He's coming over this morning, I believe,' Beatrice answered with commendable calm. 'Perhaps we can have a nice evening together this evening?' She smiled across the room at her niece. 'You - you don't feel left out, do you? Because it isn't like that at all. We're too old to go into private transports and I couldn't be so terribly happy and not share it with you.'

'That'll be lovely,' Rosalind agreed, trying to sound enthusiastic. 'I'll try and get home early.'

'Good,' said Beatrice.

Rosalind drove herself down to the office, hoping that Jennifer would not be there. In this she was unlucky. She could hear Jennifer's voice coming clearly through the window as she parked her car alongside another that she didn't recognize and which had a Nairobi number plate.

Inside the office, Jennifer was standing right beside the window with her desk between her and their visitor. Something in Jennifer's expression made Rosalind look more closely at the unknown man. He was dressed for the city and his tie looked a little too tight for him. His black face was sweating freely and he wiped it frequently with an immaculately white folded handkerchief.

'How d'you do?' Rosalind said quietly from the doorway.

Jennifer stood exactly where she was. 'You're late!' she said.

Rosalind glanced down at her watch. 'Three minutes,' she agreed. 'Is the lorry here yet?'

Jennifer forbore to answer. Rosalind cast an inquiring glance at the stranger and met the annoyed glint in his.

'My name is Duncan Njugi,' he began.

'Oh yes, of course! You're from the Ministry of Wildlife and Tourism. Have you heard about the surprise we have for you?'

Mr. Njugi wiped his face again, refolding his handkerchief into its exact folds. 'Not yet. I have been trying to find out from Miss Carne how the pilot scheme of ranching wildlife is going.'

Jennifer shrugged her shoulders. 'I don't know anything about Laurie's private schemes. I work for him, but only as far as the Co-operative is concerned. I can't help you, Mr. Njugi.'

'But the books are in the cupboard,' Rosalind protested.

Jennifer gave her a meaning look. 'How do I know that Laurie wants me to hand them over without his consent?'

'l am here with his consent,' Mr. Njugi said dryly. He turned his attention to Rosalind. 'Tell me about this surprise,' he invited. 'Laurence has taken the morning off and I told him, through his servant, that I would take a look round by myself.'

'Do as you like,' said Jennifer.

Rosalind tried to keep the surprise she felt at the other girl's rudeness out of her face. 'I'd drive you myself,' she said, 'but I have to go with the lorry.'

Duncan Njugi took his sun-glasses out of his pocket and put them on, thus veiling his intelligent, restless eyes from them both. 'It doesn't matter, Miss—? I have a driver outside with my car, and Laurence is expecting me for lunch.'

'Miss Janes,' Rosalind said. 'Rosalind Janes.' She walked out of the office with him. 'Mr. Njugi, Mr. Wilder told me you were going to take somebody back with you to Nairobi, to the Ministry, to answer more detailed questions on the ranching project. Would you take me?'

If he was surprised the African gave no sign. 'I am afraid that might be difficult,' he said in the slightly pedantic tones of many educated Africans. 'Laurence will want to choose his own emissary.'

'But I need to go!'

'It would be better to discuss this with Laurence, Miss Janes.' He smiled, deliberately softening his refusal. 'What is this surprise you have for me?'

Rosalind's eyes sparked with enthusiasm. 'Leopards! A mother and her cub! Laurence wants you to take them to Tsavo National Park, to the Chui Safari Lodge.'

Duncan Njugi grinned and he carefully wiped his face once more. 'A present for Hugo Canning? It sounds a good idea. Where are they?'

Rosalind took a step backwards. 'Perhaps Laurence wants to show them to you himself. I was only an onlooker really, but it was terribly exciting. It took us two nights to catch them.'

'Where are they now?' Mr. Njugi asked again, his white teeth very obvious against his black face. 'I'd like to see them.'

Rosalind explained, standing quietly while he got into his car and signalled to his driver to start up the engine. 'You won't forget, will you, about my going to Nairobi with you?'

He shook his head. 'I will discuss the matter with Laurence,' he promised. 'But the decision is his, not mine.' And with that she had to be content.

When she came back from her round with the lorry she knew immediately that the decision had gone against her. Jennifer sat at her desk, a novel in her hand. She never even looked up when Rosalind came in. Rosalind put down her ledgers and spent a few minutes checking her entries against the chits she had given out. It had been a good day for the factory and she thought Laurence would be pleased with the way the picking was going. She suddenly felt in urgent need of a cup of tea herself and, seeing that it was nearly four o'clock, she felt she could suggest that they had a cup.

'Shall I make it?' she asked Jennifer.

'Suit yourself,' the other girl said.

Rosalind sighed. She plugged in the electric kettle, squatting down beside the point as she put the cups on a tray and found some tea, spooning it into the teapot.

'How do you like it?'

'Does it matter?' Jennifer retorted. 'You get your own way in everything, so no doubt the tea will end up the way you like it too!'

'What do you mean?' Rosalind turned eagerly, wondering if she had misread the signs and that she was going to Nairobi after all. 'Did Duncan Njugi say anything?'

'He didn't have to. Laurie said it all!'

'Oh? Did he say I can go?'

Jennifer looked at her over the top of her book. 'Don't pretend you want to go, because I'm not fool enough to believe you! Laurie says I have to go, but I shan't be gone long, so don't get any ideas!'

Rosalind sank back to the floor, pouring the boiling water from the kettle to the teapot with automatic movements. She had to go! Somehow, she had to get away from Sotik and Laurence.

'But why? Why can't I go?'

Jennifer stood up slowly. 'Why don't you go? No one here would miss you.'

The truth of that hurt. 'Mr. Njugi said he'd ask Laurence—'

'It appears, however, that you are indispensable here. Now why do you suppose that is?'

Rosalind blinked. She picked up the tea-tray and carried it over to Jennifer's desk, putting it down carefully because her hands were trembling.

'I don't know,' she said.

'Could it be because you arranged it that way?' Jennifer probed.

Rosalind's eyes widened. She met Jennifer's squarely and was frozen by the icy hatred in the other girl's expression. 'I?' she asked.

'Yes, you. Don't look so innocent! I told you right from the start that Laurie is mine - and I know how to keep what's mine! So what are you going to do about it?'

Rosalind poured out the tea, wishing that she had never embarked on anything that would keep her in the office for a moment longer. It was Laurence that Jennifer was talking about, just as though she owned him. It was a sickening insight into a possessiveness that at best could only masquerade as love. Was this what Laurence wanted? Perhaps he didn't know, but somehow Rosalind thought that he must do. He was no fool, and if he could read her mind as though it were his own, she couldn't think that Jennifer's would be beyond him.

'What would you suggest?' she asked aloud.

'There's no need to be superior, Miss Rosalind Janes! He may have kissed you last night, but so what? He's kissed me too, you know!'

Rosalind blenched. 'As a matter of fact he didn't kiss me last night.'

'Then what were you doing?'

'We went by the leopards to see that they were all right. Didn't he tell you?'

Jennifer put her hands flat down on the desk, leaning across it, her face suffused with rage.

'Oh, don't think I don't know how you've intrigued against me, worming yourself into Laurie's good books! But you won't succeed! You'll never succeed! Once that precious aunt of yours sells out, you won't be able to stay! You'll never get a permit to work here, probably not anywhere in Kenya. You haven't any skill that anyone here couldn't do just as well, except stealing men, of course!'

'What makes you think Beatrice will sell out?' Rosalind countered, determined not to lose her temper. She had hated rows all her life.

'Because I'll tell her about you!'

Rosalind sat down hard, realizing too late that she had given Jennifer the advantage because she was still standing. 'My aunt already knows all there is to know about me,' she exclaimed weakly.

'Does she know that in exchange for this piffling job that you're doing, Laurence has complete control over her land? Does she know how you've flirted with him, tried to get him any way you could—'

'Oh no!' said Rosalind.

'No? Are you going to pretend that you're not in love with Laurie?'

Rosalind bit her lip. 'No,' she said.

Jennifer looked completely triumphant. 'I thought riot! Not even you would have the audacity for that!'

Rosalind knitted her fingers together, feeling slightly sick. 'I've done nothing that I'm ashamed of—'

'To think that I warned you about Laurie running those native cattle on to your land! I thought you'd do something to stop him, not fall on his neck with gratitude! You've been very clever, haven't you? Don't think that I don't know what's been going on! I've visited your farm almost every day. What did you pay for that new fencing? And those steers must have cost you something!'

Rosalind clutched her dignity around her. 'That reminds me,' she said, her voice shaking. 'I'd rather you didn't ride the little mare without my permission. You're welcome to ride any of the other horses, of course.'

'How dare you?'

'I like to ride the mare myself,' Rosalind went on.

'So what? So do I! And don't change the subject. I want to know how you paid Laurie for all the work he's been doing on your farm, and I mean to get an answer!'

'I don't know the answer,' Rosalind burst out. 'You'll have to ask Laurence. I didn't know about the steers until I saw them today.'

'You expect me to believe that?'

'I don't care what you believe!'

'Then you won't mind my telling you. I know all about you and your precious aunt! Coming out here, both of you, hoping to find husbands. You with your dyed hair making eyes at both John Piper and Laurie! You didn't reckon on dear Beatrice snitching John from under your very nose, did you? But you can't tell with those quiet ones. You shouldn't have been so greedy, because now you aren't going to get either of them! Serves you right—'

Rosalind felt stunned. Robbed of speech because of the lump in her throat, she found it impossible even to think of what Jennifer was saying to her. She grabbed at the one completely inessential point, despising herself for answering at all.

'But I don't dye my hair!'

Jennifer turned on her. 'Leave Laurie to me, or I'll tell John Piper a thing or two about your aunt. What chance will she have with him when he knows how unhappy she made Terence Hollings? You forget that I knew him too!'

Oh no, not Beatrice, Rosalind sobbed inwardly. She couldn't have Beatrice's vulnerable happiness spoilt by the possessive madness of Jennifer Carne. Anything, but not that!

'I won't have it—' she began.

Then go away and leave Laurie alone!'

'How can I? I can't make Laurence send me to Nairobi.'

'You'd better find a way!'

Rosalind heard the door being flung open behind her. She dropped her cup and saucer on the concrete floor and made a dive to try and retrieve them. The hot tea splashed down her legs and the china crashed into tiny pieces. It was the last straw, symbolizing the shattering of all her dreams. The tears came flooding down her face and she tried to wipe them away with the back of her hand, the bitter taste of complete humiliation in her mouth.

'What's going on here?' Laurence's deep voice demanded over her head.

'Why, nothing,' Jennifer answered, her eyes wide and innocent. 'We were just having a cup of tea. Will you have one?'

Rosalind hid her face under the desk, pretending to pick up the pieces of the broken china. One could only admire Jennifer's superb control of herself, or was it that she felt so little that a scene that had left Rosalind pale and shaking had meant no more to her than passing the time of day?

Laurence reached down and grasped Rosalind by the arm, hauling her to her feet. She thought she had never seen any man more angry. It was impossible that he wouldn't notice her trembling, or the tears that still flowed down her cheeks. She bowed her head and tried to pull herself together, wishing that the ground would open and swallow her up and that she could be alone with her mortification.

'A cup of tea?' Laurence repeated.

'I — I dropped—'

His grasp on her arm tightened. 'Shut up!' He pulled her against him, wedging her behind his shoulder so that if she wanted to see Jennifer she had to peer round him. It also meant that her tearful face was hidden from the other girl and she could cry in peace. 'Now,' he said to Jennifer in flinty tones, 'I'm waiting to hear what this row is about.'

Jennifer actually laughed. 'We were only discussing who should go to Nairobi with Duncan Njugi—'

'Indeed?'

Rosalind thought she had never heard two syllables more icily delivered and she shivered. 'I - I want to go to Nairobi—' she began.

'Shut up!' he barked at her. 'My God, women! Can't either of you accept any decision as being final?'

'You're being a teeny bit unreasonable, darling,' Jennifer told him, a loving smile on her lips. 'Rosalind wants to go to Nairobi and I want to stay here. What could be simpler than that?'

'Too bad,' Laurence roared back at her. 'But as neither of you, as yet, runs the Co-operative or the wild game project, your wants are neither here nor there. If you don't wish to submit to my rulings, you'd best resign your job here, because I have no intention of being defied by my employees in whatever capacity! Is that understood?'

'Don't be prickly, darling!' Jennifer said lightly.

Rosalind said nothing at all. His grip on her arm was bruising her flesh and she-wriggled her fingers tentatively, more than a little scared to call attention to herself. He felt the movement, however, and released her. His eyes flickered over her face, sparing her nothing, and she was shocked to discover the glimmer of a smile in their depths. How could he? It wasn't in the least funny! She felt a perfect mess and would have given anything for him not to have known that she had been quarrelling with Jennifer, the love of his life.

'Are you determined to question my authority too?' he asked her.

'No,' she whispered. She lowered her head hastily and rubbed her arm where he had held her.

'By the look of you, you'd have done better to have spent the morning in bed. Have you finished your round of the checkpoints?'

She nodded, unable to speak.

'Then you'd better go home.' He put a hand under her chin and forced her head up. 'On second thoughts, I'll find someone to drive you.' He patted her cheek. 'There's nothing for you to tremble about now, my dear,' he added gently. 'Go home to Beatrice and forget all about it. Okay?'

He escorted her outside, without a backward glance at Jennifer, and put her into Duncan Njugi's official car. The chauffeur saluted smartly and climbed into the front seat, driving her home without a single word being spoken. But as the car swept away from the Co-operative office could hear Laurence's voice, as bleak as ever, asking for the books to do with the wildlife project. But he wouldn't sound bleak for long. Jennifer would see to that.

Beatrice was at the telephone when she went in. Rosalind slipped past her and up the stairs to her room, glad of the opportunity to wash the tears away from her face and to douse her eyes with cold water in the hope that some of the red puffiness would go away.

By the time she was satisfied that she had done as much as possible to hide the ravages that her quarrel with Jennifer had caused, John had arrived. She walked down the stairs to greet him, just in time to see Beatrice's face light up at the sight of him with a radiance that Rosalind had never before seen on her face.

'Darling,' Beatrice greeted him, 'isn't it ridiculous? I saw you at lunchtime, and yet I've felt positively lonely all afternoon!'

'You must be in love!' he teased her.

'You know, I think I am. I had no idea it was so agreeable, or I might have thought about it before!'

'It wouldn't have worked before, you didn't know me,' he said with sublime conceit.

But Beatrice only laughed. 'Kiss me again!' she commanded. 'Love me?'

Rosalind cleared her throat audibly, smiling at them both. 'Shall I go upstairs again and come down later?'

Beatrice chuckled. 'I think it would be easier if you grew used to it. It's a madness that I'm not likely to recover from. John asked me to marry him at lunchtime and I'm going to as soon as we can buy a special licence.'

Rosalind embraced them both. 'I couldn't be more happy!' she exclaimed. She gave Beatrice an extra kiss. 'Let's celebrate - just the three of us! What shall we do?'

'We could start by having a drink,' John suggested. 'It's been an exhausting day, screwing up my courage sufficiently to ask Bea to marry me, and being accepted—'

'Were you in any doubt?' Rosalind asked him, laughing.

'I was terrified!' he insisted.

Beatrice looked at him with loving eyes. 'I was terrified that he wouldn't ask me,' she said simply.: 'I still can't see that I'm going to add much to his life, while he's a whole new dimension to mine. It's ridiculous never to have been fully alive until one's my age!'

John shook his head at her. 'That goes for both of us! But I think we owe Rosalind a change of topic. We don't want to bore her to death with our happiness.'

'You couldn't!' Rosalind assured him. 'I'm enjoying seeing Bea in this mushy state. My darling aunt, who never loses her head and is always practical! Mother should have been living at this hour to see it!'

Beatrice coloured prettily. 'Your mother would have liked John,' was all she said. 'Just as John would have liked her.'

Rosalind led the way into the sitting room. She poured them each out a drink and, holding her own up high, she launched herself into a speech. It was the traditional manner of celebrating anything in her family, and she couldn't help feeling how long it had been since she had last been called upon to do the honours.

'Revered aunt,' she began, 'and deluded if delightful fiancé of my revered aunt—'

'You might spare us that,' Beatrice complained. 'You know how I hate to be addressed as aunt!'

'Revered aunt!' Rosalind repeated reprovingly. 'Landowner—'

'Oh yes,' said Beatrice. 'John, where are we going to live?'

John gave her a surprised look. 'In the bungalow. Where else? It would be a life's work to move my collection anywhere else. Laurence will look after the farm.'

Rosalind's hand shook as she held up her glass. 'Will you kindly pay attention?' she demanded. 'How can I make a speech if you keep on interrupting?'

Her aunt gave her a gleeful grin. 'Sorry, love,' she said blithely. 'Do pray continue!'

And so Rosalind did, thinking as she allowed her poetic fancy full rein, that this was the last real family occasion that she would ever know. In England, she had no family to go back to, and Beatrice had found her own sphere where she would be superfluous. It was a lonely thought and she suppressed it firmly.

'On this auspicious occasion—'

'No originality!' sighed her aunt.

Rosalind giggled. 'I give up!' she cried, sounding pained.

'Thank goodness for that!' said Beatrice.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Rosalind was obliged to walk down to the office the next morning as her car was already there. It was not a particularly long walk, but she didn't allow herself enough time to do it in comfort, and she was dismayed to discover that the lorry had already left without her. Laurence would be simply furious! She remembered his frozen anger of the day before and quivered, sighing. Nothing, it seemed, was to go right for her just now.

The office door was locked, but as the window was wide open, Rosalind threw her leg over the sill and jumped lightly down on to the floor. The room looked different somehow. At first she couldn't place what the difference was, but then she realized that Jennifer's usual surface clutter had been cleared away and that there was nothing except the telephone on the desk.

The sight of the telephone made her think that, as she had missed her round of the checkpoints, she might as well drive and have lunch with Beatrice. Her aunt was a long time coming to the telephone.

'Where were you?' Rosalind asked her.

'I don't think you'd be properly sympathetic if I told you,' Beatrice answered.

'Ah!' said Rosalind. 'I take it that John is there?'

'Yes.' There was a long pause. 'Ros, I wanted to tell you last night that it won't make any difference to us. John and I both want you to live with us at the bungalow. I expect you can go on working for Laurence?'

'I think not,' Rosalind said carefully.

'But why not? He's hardly likely to cast you off into the cold world without fixing up something!'

'He's been very generous,' Rosalind agreed in stilted tones. 'He probably would find something for me to do, but I couldn't accept.'

'Not that ridiculous feud between you! Surely you've got over that?'

'In a way.'

'Ros, what does that mean?'

'Laurence is going to marry Jennifer. I don't think it would work out very well if I were to stay on here. Jennifer wouldn't like it, and I quite understand her point. I'm thinking of going back to England as soon as you're settled. I could probably get my old job back.'

'And that half-witted young man you used to go out with?'

Her aunt's exasperation made Rosalind laugh. 'I don't think my credit with him is very good,' she remarked. 'He likes to shine in his sphere and I rather cramped his style.'

'Goodness,' said Beatrice, awed, 'where is he going to find a quarter-witted girl?'

'As long as she knows nothing about farming, he won't care about the rest,' Rosalind chuckled.

'Then it isn't him that's on your mind?'

'Certainly not!' Rosalind was appalled by the thought and sounded it.

'Then it must be Laurence?'

'We-ell,' Rosalind compromised, 'I think I shall be happier away from him. He takes far too much for granted! He's sure he knows best all the time, and I find I don't like being told what to do—'

Beatrice made an impatient sound. 'Ros, have you fallen in love with him?'

Rosalind clutched the telephone. 'He's going to marry Jennifer,' she said again.

'Did he tell you that?'

'N-no, she did!'

'Oh well, I suppose it must be true, then,' Beatrice admitted. 'I must say I'm surprised. I know Jennifer said something the first time she came over, but I didn't believe it was anything more than wishful thinking.'

Rosalind glanced up and saw her own face reflected in the looking-glass Jennifer had hung on the opposite wall for her own convenience. She was shocked by the sour, defeated expression she wore and thought that if she didn't pull herself together, her despair would be common knowledge. She sighed. She owed it to Beatrice to do better than that, but how was she to cope with this shattering longing for Laurence's interest? It was ridiculous of her to pretend that she minded his highhanded methods! Looking back, she thought he had been kinder to her than she deserved - in his own way. He had protected her from her own foolishness as far as the farm was concerned; when she had worked herself to exhaustion, he had rescued her from that folly too, finding her something else to do and refusing to listen to her objections. If he had kissed her, when he had no right to kiss anyone but Jennifer, it was probably because he had thought it the best way of dealing her as it had effectually brought any discussion to an end. She knew now that he loathed quarrelling females. He had made that quite clear when he had walked into the office the day before. But she refused to dwell on that! The sound of Jennifer's sneering voice echoed in her mind and she saw her hand was shaking again as she grasped the telephone receiver.

'Darling, are you still there?'

Rosalind started. 'Yes, yes, of course I am! Did you say something?'

'I asked why you rang!' her aunt informed her with a touch of asperity. 'Several times, as a matter of fact.'

'Oh. It was only that I didn't allow myself enough time to walk here this morning and I missed the lorry round. I thought I might come back to lunch?'

Beatrice sounded surprisingly reluctant. 'I could manage it, I suppose,' she said. 'Hang on, while I ask John!'

'No, don't,' Rosalind said immediately. 'I've changed my mind. I've just thought that I might be able to catch up with the lorry at the factory.'

She tried not to be hurt while her aunt expressed her pleasure that she would not be there at lunchtime. It was only natural that Beatrice should want to be alone with John. It was yet another pointer to her going back to England, Rosalind thought They would pretend that they wanted her, they might even convince themselves that it was so, for she knew that they were both very fond of her, but they had each other to love and to explore, and for that she would be decidedly in the way.

She rang off, glad that she had stopped trembling, and wondered what she should do next. She had never been allowed to do much in the office itself, but she supposed she had better find herself something to do, if only in mitigation of her failure to do her own work.

Her own ledgers were missing and she supposed the lorry driver had taken them with him. Never mind, she would begin by sorting out the papers in the drawers of the desk and go on from there. She lifted a sorry tangle of stuff out of the top drawer, grimacing at the mess of make-up and a comb that had lost most of its teeth and was full of dusty, moulted hair. Rosalind dropped the lot into the waste paper basket and turned her attention to the papers. They reached back for several weeks, a clutter of bills, receipts, and the copies of various letters that had been addressed to some of the Co-operative farmers. Rosalind put them into piles, filing as many of them as possible in the practically empty filing cabinet. From one drawer, she progressed on to the next and then the third, astonished at the lack of order that ruled throughout the office. How on earth had Jennifer ever managed to find anything? How, indeed, had the Co-operative ticked over at all without any proper records being kept in anything except the tea section, which she had been doing herself?

It was interesting work to her, for it told her a great deal about Laurence's activities. In the past, she had always groaned over the office work that had been attached to the farm where she had been employed. This was the first time she had seen it as the centre of the enterprise, from where one could grasp all the salient facts and get an overall view of the whole. It didn't surprise her at all to learn that Laurence had turned the Cooperative from the bare idea of a few shrewd agricolas in the early sixties into the thriving concern that it was now. He had had his difficulties, from illiteracy to tribal stubbornness to the endless jealousies between one small farmer and another, but with a mixture of tact and determined authority he had driven them forward into the twentieth century and had somehow managed to retain their respect and friendship.

She had finished the desk and had started on the nearest filing cabinet when Laurence came in. She knew immediately who it was and she spent a long moment fiddling quite unnecessarily with the papers in front of her to avoid looking up and seeing him.

'You've made yourself very much at home in here,' he remarked.

She blinked nervously. 'I - I was 1-late,' she stammered. 'The lorry went without me.'

'I know.' He seated himself on the edge of the desk and watched her riffling through the papers in the cabinet.

'It was silly of me,' she hurried Oh. 'I should have allowed more time, but I forgot the car was here—' She glanced up at him and away again. 'How did you know?'

'I was here when the lorry went. I wanted to have a word with you.'

'Oh,' she said.

There was a long silence.

'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I know I should have been here earlier, but the lorry driver took my letters and chits with him, so I don't suppose I shall be much missed.' The unconscious bitterness of her remark was not lost on either of them. Rosalind buried her head deep in the cabinet, her heart pounding.

'Sit down,' he ordered her. 'I dislike speaking to your rear.'

She sat down on the chair with a bang, a sheaf of papers still in her hand. 'What do you want to speak to me about?'

He gave her an enigmatic smile. 'Shall we have a cup of tea?' he suggested. 'I think it might soothe those jumpy nerves of yours.'

Grateful to have something to do, Rosalind busied herself with making the tea. She poured out two cups and handed him one, offering him the sugar bowl with a seriousness that made him smile.

'No, thanks.' He put a detaining finger under her chin and turned her face towards the light. 'Why are your eyes black now, I wonder?' he said gently. 'What fibs are you planning to tell me?'

'Actually,' she said, 'I'm a very truthful person.'

'Good, then perhaps you'll tell me what was going on yesterday afternoon?'

'It wasn't anything much,' Rosalind said uncomfortably. 'It's better left in the past—'

'Better for whom? For you, or for Jennifer?'

The colour came and went in her cheeks, leaving her very pale. 'Does it matter?'

The icy grey of his eyes disturbed her. She tried to stir her tea, but her hands were shaking so badly that she put the teaspoon down on her saucer without having used it.

'It matters to me,' Laurence assured her. 'I heard enough to explain a few things that have puzzled me recently.' His mouth tightened dangerously. 'Enough to know that no one is ever going to speak to the woman I'm going to marry like that again if I can help it.'

Rosalind gritted her teeth. 'I'm sorry,' she managed. 'I did try not to quarrel with Jennifer. I knew it wouldn't get us anywhere. But I don't suppose you'll believe me. • I'd really much rather not discuss it.'

'There are some things which are better out in the open and not left festering, ready to erupt later when the damage has already been done. What happened, Rosalind?'

She winced. 'Must I tell you?'

'I think you must,' he said.

She took a quick sip of tea, scalding her lips. Funnily enough, the physical pain of the hot liquid shocked her into finding the words to put the quarrel into some sort of perspective.

'I asked Mr. Njugi to persuade you to let me go to Nairobi with him. I thought if he asked for me particularly, you might agree.' She raised her eyes to the cold warning in his and dropped them again quickly. 'I had to go to Nairobi!'

'Why?'

She made a helpless gesture, licking her lips nervously. 'Because I can't stay on here!' she burst out.

His eyebrows shot up. 'Because of Beatrice and John?' he shot at her.

'No, of course not! I wouldn't do anything to spoil things for Bea! She deserves every moment of happiness that John can give her. You surely didn't think I'd be petty enough not to be pleased for her, did you?'

'No, I didn't think that. I thought you might have got your own future a little out of perspective—'

'I'm going back to England!'

He studied her face closely. 'And what had your going to Nairobi to do with Jennifer?' he asked.

Rosalind averted her face, but she couldn't prevent the tremble in her voice. 'She wanted me to go.'

'Then, surely, you were in agreement. What was there to quarrel about in that?'

'I'd rather not tell you,' she managed. 'It wasn't only that. There was the mare as well. I'd asked her not to ride the mare before—'

'Yes, I remember that.'

She was surprised for a moment, then she remembered that she had mentioned that Jennifer had asked to ride her when Laurence had found her at the dip. 'I suppose it was small-minded of me, but I didn't want her to ride the mare - even if she did have a saddle and I didn't!'

'I would have given you one, if you'd asked me,' Laurence told her, a smile turning up the corners of his mouth.

Rosalind blushed scarlet. 'What would Jennifer have had to say to that?' she demanded. 'Besides, I wouldn't have accepted it.'

'I think you would have done, if I'd put my mind to seeing that you did!' he drawled. He leaned forward, lighting himself a cigarette and dropping the match from a height into the newly cleaned ashtray. 'Okay, so you didn't like her riding your mare, was that something to reduce yourself to a jelly about?'

'No,' she admitted.

'So that's really no more than a red herring? Would it make it easier for you if I tell you that I overheard something of what Jennifer said to you yesterday. I've never been angrier in my life—'

'I know,' Rosalind almost whispered.

'Then can't you tell me?'

'Do I have to?'

'I think you do,' he said.

Rosalind tried to remember what she had said the day before, but her memory failed her. All she could remember was the abyss of humiliation that had stretched out before her while she had tried to conjure up the weapons to fight Jennifer's vindictive possessiveness.

'You thought I'd been flirting with you,' she said helplessly. 'I didn't mean to—'

The familiar, mocking amusement crept into his eyes. 'It's so much more convincing when it isn't intended!' he teased her.

'But I didn't mean to!' she denied.

He chuckled. 'The girl can't help it? My dear, do you think I didn't know that? It was the only encouraging thing I could hang on to. Otherwise it was hands off all the way! Very bad for my ego, let me tell you.'

'I'm surprised your ego noticed!' she retorted, with a sudden return of spirit. 'Nothing could dent your confidence! You wouldn't recognize a shrinking violet if you saw one!'

Laurence grinned. 'You're pretty resilient yourself!' he replied, unperturbed. 'So, what does it all add up to?'

She took a deep breath. 'I wanted to go to Nairobi to get away from you,' she confessed.

'Okay,' he agreed. 'I accept that. But why did you have to bolt from me? I thought we understood each other better than that?'

Rosalind screwed up her courage to sticking point. 'Because I'm in love with you,' she said.

His smile was so tender that it set her heart rocketing off again, doing disastrous things to her breathing. His hands shot out, reached round her and guided her round the desk and into the circle of his arms.

'Was that so difficult to say?' he asked her. 'After all, I did tell you that no one was ever going to talk to my future wife like that again and get away with it. It was your turn to make a move.'

She stared at him, her face white and her eyes very black. 'But you're going to marry Jennifer!'

'Am I?'

'You know you are. I've known about it from the beginning!'

'Then you knew more than I did, sweetheart. Jennifer Carne came here as my secretary, no more than that, and she was on her way out as that, as surely the state of the office must have told you, if nothing else did?'

'You mean you've sacked her?'

'I mean I already had. Yesterday I told her to pack her bags and not come back—'

'Because of me?' Rosalind murmured. 'But, Laurence, she thought you were going to marry her! She told us so, and she couldn't have imagined the whole thing!'

'No,' he agreed grimly.

Rosalind gave him a harassed look. 'Oh, darling, I was so sure you were going to marry her!'

'Hence your determination to rush off to Nairobi?'

She nodded. 'I thought at first that I'd be content to see you every now and then, that would be enough for me—'

'A trifle optimistic of you!' he said dryly.

She gulped. 'I - I—' She came to a breathless halt as the pressure of his hands increased on the small of her back, drawing her close against him. 'Oh, Laurence!'

'Very optimistic!' he said, and he kissed her hard on the lips.

* * *

'Let's get out of here,' Laurence suggested. 'This place reminds me of things I'd sooner forget.'

Rosalind nodded willingly. 'I'm sorry about that scene with Jennifer. If I'd been less taken up with how miserable I was feeling, I wouldn't have been surprised into retaliating.' She hesitated, smiling at him. 'It was horrid for you, coming in like that, but I was afraid that she might hurt Beatrice—'

'Was that what tied your hands? You've never been afraid to answer me back,' he commented.

She blushed. 'Much good it did me!'

He smiled wryly. 'If you hadn't been in such a panic, you would have seen what a spot I was in over you. Or do you suppose I always rescue young women from the results of their own pigheadedness, finding them jobs where I can keep an eye on them, and neglecting my own work to keep a roof over their heads?'

'Well,' she said judiciously, 'you are naturally highhanded, and—'

'And?' he pressed her.

She hesitated, smiling a little, then she gave in altogether. 'And I've always been my own woman and I rather resented another's hand on the reins, even if it was for my own good. And then there was Jennifer.'

'Does that mean that your instincts to rebel may rear up again?' he teased her.

She shook her head. 'No, I know myself better now. My independence looked a poor thing when I thought it was all I was going to have. To follow you is all I'll ever want, and anyway,' she added honestly, 'you would always out-gun me if I took a stand.'

'Because physically you're all mine?'

She was embarrassed by his frankness and even more by the look in his eyes. 'Is it so obvious?' she asked humbly.

His grey eyes laughed at her. 'I do believe you've taken my advice: that you're crying me mercy; loving me; taking my offer—'

'But that was about the farm!' she protested.

His lips hovered very close to hers. 'Was it?' he murmured.

Laurence locked the office with a flourish. She thought he looked very well pleased with himself as he handed her into his car. Perhaps the same glow of satisfaction was as obvious in her. She gave a little giggle and blushed when he glanced inquiringly at her.

'Will you feel safe if I take you back to my place for lunch ?' he inquired wickedly.

'I'll risk it,' she decided. 'I love your house, Laurence! It really is like finding the end of the rainbow—'

'Mmm,' he said thoughtfully, 'it is rather. Now that I'm assured that my crock of gold is there, waiting for me!' He put up a hand and fingered her hair, smiling. 'I couldn't believe my eyes when I first saw that pale gold hair and those delicious, dark-brown eyes.'

'You never even looked at me!' she accused him.

'My dear girl, that's all you know! I nearly kissed you there and then!'

'You were abominably rude!' she retorted.

He grinned. 'It seemed the lesser evil then. What would you have done if I had kissed you?'

'I - I don't know. Laurence, if Beatrice is going to live in John's bungalow and I -1—'

'You, my darling, are going to live with me, make no mistake about that!'

'Yes,' she agreed hastily, 'but what are we going to do about the farm?'

He shrugged his shoulders. 'As soon as I get it into some kind of order, we'll put a manager in. Beatrice won't make much out of it, but it will help them to eke out the little John makes from his flowers.'

'Some of the money in the farm is mine,' she reminded him. 'It came to me when my parents were killed. Only a couple of thousand pounds. They weren't at all well off. I don't know if Bea would accept it, though.'

'You can give it to her as a wedding present,' he told her. 'It will make things easier for them, and I prefer my wife to live on what I can give her.'

'Yes, my lord!'

'Laugh while you can, woman, my turn is coming!'

She sat back, well content to have it so. 'Darling,' she said, 'I do love you! Are you going to ask me to marry you, by the way?'

'It depends if you're going to accept me?'

She chuckled. 'You know I am, but I should rather like to receive a proposal. I don't suppose you'll often ask me things, more likely tell me when you've decided, so I want to make the most of my traditional moment of power!'

He drove the car up to the front of his house and switched off the engine.

'Do you object to my being the senior partner?' he asked carefully.

She thought about it, sensing that he was being quite serious. 'No,' she said at last. 'I think I welcome it.'

He looked deep into her eyes. 'Very biddable!' he commended her. He kissed her gently. 'I want a wife, not a shadow, my love! Are you going to marry me ?'

'If you please,' she said.

'But I thought you didn't like him!' Beatrice gasped.

'I thought so too,' Rosalind smiled. 'The trouble was that I underrated the enemy—'

'Jennifer?'

Rosalind, who had completely forgotten about the other girl for the moment, blushed. 'I was thinking more about another enemy within the gate,' she said. 'I hadn't a chance once Laurence had made up his mind to marry me!'

'Oh well,' Beatrice said easily, 'you look very complacent about it all. I couldn't be more pleased! I was a bit upset that you should want to go back to England. You're all the family I've got, love, and I've got used to you being close by. I was going to do all I could to get you to stay.'

'You wouldn't have succeeded if Laurence had really been going to marry Jennifer. I feel quite sorry for that girl. I wonder what will become of her.'

Beatrice yawned. 'I admire your forgiving spirit,' she said. 'I never did like her and I'm glad she's gone. The sooner we forget all about her the better! Ros, I do like Laurence. I know you'd marry him anyway, whether I did or not, but on behalf of your mother - and I think your father too — you have our blessing and our wishes for a long life of happiness together!'

Rosalind smiled across at her aunt, touched by this gentle reminder of her parents. 'I think I shall burst with sheer happiness,' she exclaimed. 'Let's go inside and find out if the men still love us as much as we think they do!'

And, laughing, they went back into the house.

It was late when Laurence drove Rosalind home.

'I hope John and Beatrice have children to keep ours company,' Rosalind murmured as she got into the car. 'It will be good for them to all run wild together.'

Laurence raised a quizzical eyebrow. 'How many are we going to have?'

Rosalind tucked her hand into his arm and smiled sleepily at him. 'Lots and lots,' she declared.

He grinned. 'I thought you were afraid I was going to make all the decisions in our family?' he teased her, tweaking her fair hair.

She reached across and kissed him on the chin. 'I thought I'd get in quickly while you're in a loving, indulgent mood—'

'I knew it wouldn't be long before you'd be sticking your chin in the air and arguing the toss!' he sighed.

'I wouldn't dare!' she retorted. 'Don't you want children ?'

'I think I might put up with yours.'

'Well, then—''

'If you ask me nicely, I'll consider it,' he went on gravely.

'Laurence Wilder! Of all the pompous, conceited—'

His eyes glinted, an expression in their depths that brought the colour rushing up into her cheeks.

'I knew it! There goes that chin again!' He kissed her, parting her lips beneath his, until her response became as warm and vital as he could wish. 'Darling, I think I'd better take you home.:'

She slipped her arms , beneath his coat, holding him very close. 'In a little while,' she pleaded. 'When you first saw me, you said you'd treat me like a woman when I behaved like one. You know, I think I like it!'

'And this is the girl who says she doesn't flirt!' he groaned.

She gave him a dignified look. 'I don't,' she said. 'One doesn't flirt with one's own husband or fiancé!'

He looked amused. 'No? What does one call it, then?'

She hid her face against him, very much aware of the strength of his hands as he held her. 'I don't know,' she admitted. 'Just loving you!' And she wondered at the gentleness of his kiss and the promise of future bliss that she found in his arms.