The Reluctant Guest Read Online Free Page B

— very plain, but in huge quantities. He also polished the floors, cleaned the windows, did the washing and ironing and between times tidied the garden and chopped wood for the kitchen stove. The boy didn’t seem to be overworked, but then most of what he attempted was only half done. For his own sake, perhaps, he gave most attention to the cooking, so there was seldom a grumble from his employers. Either they did not notice his shortcomings in other directions or they made allowances.
    For dinner that evening, Aaron used steak which he tenderized with a murderous-looking slat of wood that had about thirty nails sticking out of one end of it, small potatoes, dried-up peas from the garden, a few yellow gem squash, a tin of fruit and a box of wheat biscuits.
    The table looked fairly festive. Ann had found a white cloth and two brass candlesticks, and by careful searching she had also discovered some precocious pear blossom on the edge of the orchard. She rubbed the dusty look from a couple of candles and fitted then into the holders, arranged the pear blossom in a clay vase at the centre of the table, and carefully set three places. The table was ready, vegetables were cooking and the steak awaited the sound of Theo’s wheels.
    Ann began to palpitate. Her thoughts skipped back a few hours, to the night on the train. Wakeful, she had wondered about Theo, felt first excited and happy and then a little frightened ... then happy again. Only her parents knew that she had never before been so friendly with a man as she had been with Theo, during those two weeks he had persuaded her to spend wallowing in the delights of Cape Town. And even her parents hadn’t guessed how uplifting she had found her first experience of being almost in love. She stood at the window looking out into the darkness, and recalled those evenings when they had sped along between vineyards and orchards, halted on a headland and listened to the sea, laughed together and learned about each other. Her mother had said, wisely, “You’re in love with the idea of love, aren’t I you, Ann? It’s not just Theo — it’s the whole thing, open in g out in front of you. You’re a bit late about it, you know, dear!”
    Ann remembered her own response: “I want it to take a long time to happen. Is that silly?”
    H er mother had laughed. Neither of them had thought much about Theo as a person till the letter from Elva had arrived. He had simply been a delightful episode that left a blank, and might or might not have repercussions. Now Ann thought of him almost as a refuge; which was queer. Theo wasn’t the bulwark type.
    Elva came down into the room. She wore a powder blue silk frock, white studs in her ears and flat white sandals. Her hair was again drawn back into a wheaten knot, but she had left it a little looser, to form a wave just above the brow. She had used lipstick and a trace of powder, and the effect was good.
    “It’s after seven,” she commented. “He should be here soon.” Then she looked at the table. “My, oh my! He’ll know it was you. I haven’t had a flower in the house for ... for years.”
    Why the hesitation, Ann wondered. Then she rebuked herself. She was getting hypersensitive, noticing everything and making trifles important. Nerves, she supposed.
    They were getting in the way of everything . T hen, quite suddenly, they heard the sound they were listening for. The crunch of tires on gravel, the final braking and cutting out of the engine. Without knowing it, Ann had gone paper-white. She stood very still, her , hand tight upon the back of a chair as she watched the door.
    There was a sound on the wood, the door opened and Storr Peterson came in. For several seconds he stood there, his gaze travelling over the two women in a rapid summing up before it rested on the bowl of blossom. Then he came right in.
    “Sorry, girls,” he said, “but you’ve got yourselves keyed up for nothing. Theo won’t be here tonight.”
    In her