Brittle Bondage Read Online Free PDF Page B

the veranda. In the dimness she nearly collided with Blake.
    “I saw your light,” he said. “It was on a long time, so I came to investigate. Were you brooding about something?”
    “No, just freshening up. The dining-room got hot, so I cooled off thoroughly.”
    He pulled the door shut. “Good girl. Are you over the stage fright?”
    “Practically. They’re so friendly.”
    “I told you you’d make a hit.” He drew her along towards the front of the house. “Presently, they’ll suggest dancing, but don’t let them overtire you. Who’s this?”—as a man strolled to the corner pillar and tossed a cigarette out into the garden. “Oh, it’s you, Paul. Be a good doctor and give Venetia a few restful minutes, will you?”
    “With pleasure.”
    Blake patted her arm and moved away to the large group in the porch. Paul breathed deeply and appreciatively, and bent over to snap off a sprig of jasmine.
    “The more I smell of your garden, the less satisfied I become with my own. Where will you sit?”
    “I prefer the wall.”
    “You may get beetles in you r hair.”
    “It’s worth it, to sit above the flowers. Do you live in Ellisburg, Dr. Rivers?”
    “Not quite—just this side of it, but my consulting-rooms are in the centre of the town. I’m hoping to persuade Blake to bring you to look over my ancient house and wooded acre one day.”
    “Has he seen them?”
    “No. It’s an odd but incontrovertible fact tha t bachelors seldom get together in their homes. It takes a woman to bring out the human in them.” Paul slid the jasmine stem into his lapel—he had come straight from the hospital and wore a lounge suit. “I rather thought your sister-in-law would be here tonight.”
    “Thea? I wish she were, then we’d be complete.” Venetia looked up at him. “You know her?”
    “We met in Durban some time ago and worked together for a while. She’s an excellent nurse.”
    “Blake says she’s charming. I wish she’d come, if only for a week-end.”
    “Have you invited her?”
    “Not ... yet.”
    Paul eased over the pause. “There’s plenty of time, and you can depend upon her accepting you as a sister with the greatest cordiality.”
    “Is she like Blake?”
    “In many ways, yes.” He went on reminiscently: “Thea’s fiercely independent and unyielding—or she was. Blake’s the same, only more so. I’m looking forward to meeting her again.”
    “Durban is only a few hours away. Eventually she may be coming home often.”
    There was no conviction in Venetia’s statement. Upon this matter she was certain, Blake would never capitulate. Thea must wait.
    Music came from the radio in the lounge. A languorous, cloying tune stole over the African air.
    “Shall we dance?” said Paul.
    He danced well, and so did the other men; they had plenty of practice, for parties in these parts invariably included that type of exercise. Later there was more talking and drinking.
    No one left till midnight, and it was nearly one before the last guests departed. Venetia went to bed exhausted, but profoundly thankful that the evening had gone through without catastrophe.

 
    CHAPTER FOUR
    DURING the next few days storms brewed and flooded, left the sky washed clean, and then gathered again. The sultry dryness of the atmosphere had given way to heavy, hot humidity which was tropical in its effect on the pores of the body. One could not move without oozing perspiration.
    After household requirements were met and the labourers had received their ration, the orchard fruit was wrapped, boxed and sent to the coast. Later the harvested maize would be despatched to the co-operative depot, and after that other crops would be coming along. Growth, development and maturity never ceased in this heady, moist climate.
    Though sugar was the backbone of Bondolo, Venetia learned that timber, fruit and cattle were richly rewarding sidelines. The estate ran to three thousand acres of prodigally abundant crops flanked on the north